ANC82DA028 · Cessna 310D
Cessna 310D · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water during landing
From Merrill Field (MRI) to Merrill Field (MRI)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's departure or destination. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC82DA028
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Completed
- API-reported fatalities
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- General aviation
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Cessna 310D
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 310
- Category
- Airplane
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- N6817T
- Operator
- Lee R. Bratcher · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route Possible conflict
- From Merrill Field (MRI), Anchorage, AKTo Merrill Field (MRI), Anchorage, AK
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 91: General Aviation
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- Landing · flare/touchdown
- First occurrenceThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- In flight collision with terrain/water
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Door, landing gear › Worn
- Landing gear, nose gear assembly › Worn
- Landing gear, nose gear › Jammed
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, 100-hour inspection, inadequate
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
JUST PRIOR TO THE MISHAP, MAINTENANCE ON THE AIRCRAFT HAD BEEN PERFORMED. THIS INCLUDED WORK ON THE CABIN HEATER IN THE NOSE WHEEL WELL AREA. AFTER TAKEOFF TO FERRY THE PLANE TO A NEARBY AIRPORT, THE NOSE WHEEL BECAME JAMMED AS THE GEAR WAS RETRACTED. THE MAIN GEAR COULD BE CYCLED BUT THE NOSE GEAR WOULD NOT EXTEND. WHILE LANDING WITH THE MAIN GEAR EXTENDED, THE NOSE SECTION AND PROPELLER TIPS WERE DAMAGED AS THE NOSE WAS LOWERED TO THE RUNWAY. AN EXAMINATION REVEALED THAT THE LEFT NOSE GEAR DOOR WAS PARTIALLY CLOSED AS THE NOSE GEAR RETRACTED. THE NOSE GEAR AND STRUT HAD CRUSHED THE DOOR INWARD AND UPWARD. THE CENTERING CAM/WHEEL STRAIGHTENER, THE UPPER NOSE WHEEL STEERING MECHANISM, AND THE GEAR RETRACT ARM MECHANISMS ON THE NOSE GEAR DOORS WERE WORN. ALSO, A LACK OF LUBRICATION WAS NOTED IN THE NOSE GEAR ASSEMBLY. THE AIRCRAFT HAD BEEN FLOWN APPROXIMATELY 15 HOURS SINCE THE LAST ANNUAL INSPECTION.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC82DA028
- Event ID
- 20020917X01637
- Case number
- ANC82DA028
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (4)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 613a86c472856a8d43f388d8ae98f1953ba7cd67233e5a1cc6f66389964f4f61; retrieved 2026-09-24T03:29:41.651Z.