CHI04LA038 · Cessna 340A
Cessna 340A · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during landing
From Jefferson City Memorial Airport (JEF) to Poplar Bluff Municipal Airport (POF)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI04LA038
- 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 340A
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 340
- 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
- N200GC
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Jefferson City Memorial Airport (JEF), Jefferson City, MOTo Poplar Bluff Municipal Airport (POF), Poplar Bluff, MO
- 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
- Loss of control on ground/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
- Pilot in command › Directional control, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The twin-engine airplane was substantially damaged when it departed runway 36 during landing. The nose landing gear collapsed when the aircraft encountered soft, muddy turf adjacent to the runway and subsequently impacted a berm. The pilot reported that everything was normal throughout the flight until short final, just prior to touchdown. He stated that winds were from 320 degrees at 6 knots. The pilot reported that when he attempted to align the nose of the aircraft with the runway for touchdown, he had no right rudder control. He stated: "I observed that the right rudder pedal was fully deflected to the right. I tried to get it loose or back to the normal position with my foot to no avail." After touchdown the aircraft "veered" to the left. Attempts to correct to the right were unsuccessful. The pilot noted, "I tried using differential power to maintain runway alignment but was unable. At this point, I reduced power back to the stops/idle, trying to maneuver the aircraft the best I could. During this time I had no right rudder control. Once the aircraft [came] to a complete stop, it was shut down." Post-accident inspection confirmed rudder control continuity and brake system integrity. Full rudder travel, without restriction or binding, was observed. Rudder pedal inputs produced a proper, corresponding rudder movement. No anomalies with the nose wheel steering system which could be attributed to a pre-impact malfunction, were observed. The brake system appeared to be intact and to operate normally.
Probable cause
Failure to maintain directional control during landing. Collapse of the nose landing gear, the muddy grass/turf and the berm were contributing factors.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI04LA038
- Event ID
- 20031205X02002
- Case number
- CHI04LA038
- 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: 317f4619f2d8eca69853b8ad088cb006f10f8348f98d9c010ba577f75e04f18a; retrieved 2026-09-22T08:08:21.246Z.