ANC03LA053 · Cessna 320
Cessna 320 · Accident: main gear collapsed during landing
From Merrill Field (PAMR) to Mc Carthy Airport (15Z)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC03LA053
- 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
- Unknown
- 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 320
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 320
- 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
- N5712X
- Operator
- Kenneth W. Simonis · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Merrill Field (PAMR), Anchorage, AKTo Mc Carthy Airport (15Z), McCarthy, 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 · landing roll
- 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
- Main gear collapsed
- 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
- Landing gear, main gear › Collapsed
Not plotted · Location withheld: coordinates are missing, conflicting, invalid, or have no accepted acquisition method. No substitute location has been invented.
NTSB narrative
The private certificated pilot, holder of an aviation mechanic certificate, was landing at a remote airport on a cross-country business flight. He said that during the landing roll, the left main landing gear suddenly collapsed. The pilot indicated that the airplane is equipped with one landing gear position light. He said prior to landing, he observed the right main landing gear and the nose gear position via a mirror positioned on the right engine nacelle. They appeared to be extended, and the landing gear position light was indicating green. The airplane received damage to the left flap, and the underside of the fuselage. The pilot indicated the landing gear drive mechanism consists of an actuator rod, driven by an electric motor. He noted that the main landing gear had been subjected to side loads during the flight just prior to accident flight, and either the left main landing gear actuator rod, or associated support structure, may have been damaged. As of July 2004, he had not had an opportunity to thoroughly inspect the landing gear system to determine why the landing gear collapsed.
Probable cause
The collapse of the left main landing gear during the landing roll for undetermined reasons.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC03LA053
- Event ID
- 20030606X00811
- Case number
- ANC03LA053
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2003-05-30.
- API snapshot SHA-256: b591d4a73ef0758de54cd2e71d26fdea672dbc71c1fbfea81b360c23a0f61089; retrieved 2026-09-22T09:14:09.698Z.