SEA03LA113 · Cessna 206
McCall Aviation Cessna 206 · Accident: gear collapsed during landing
From MKL · McCall, ID to Soldier Bar US Forest Service Airport (85U)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA03LA113
- 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 206
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 206
- 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
- N7372Q
- Operator
- McCall Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From MKL · McCall, IDTo Soldier Bar US Forest Service Airport (85U), Soldier Bar, ID
- 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
- 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, nose gear assembly › Overload
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, installation, improper
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
After a smooth landing and rollout, the pilot noticed the attitude of the airplane changing as the nose pitched down. Subsequently, the nose gear collapsed and the aircraft slid to a stop in an upright position. The aircraft sustained substantial damage to the fuselage structure where the nose gear drag link connects to the casting. There was also damage to the lower front cowling and the propeller blades as a result of impacting the runway surface. The nose gear yoke and nose gear strut assemblies were sent to the NTSB Materials Laboratory Division for examination. The examination revealed that the nose gear failed in overstress, consistent with the nose gear yoke moving to the aft and to the right relative to the nose gear strut. It was reported that incorrect nose gear yoke attachment bolts and nuts were installed incorrectly and that one of the bolts was fractured, consistent with overstress in shear. It was also reported that a wedge-shaped spacer was not installed between the nose gear strut and the nose gear yoke, which would affect the loading of the four yoke attachment bolts. Also noted was the presence of various cracks around the attachment bolt through holes. The fracture surfaces were consistent with fatigue.
Probable cause
The overload failure of the nose landing gear assembly during the landing roll, due to an improper maintenance installation. A factor was the rough/uneven terrain condition.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA03LA113
- Event ID
- 20030624X00949
- Case number
- SEA03LA113
- 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, coordinates. 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: c861b6eee43d9c40489ca1f032047f099085f535131ed8c6e240d5e7f79f14d7; retrieved 2026-09-22T09:08:16.927Z.