LAX04LA108 · Cessna P210N
Cessna P210N · Accident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From Tucson International Airport (TUS) to Dallas Love Field (DAL)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX04LA108
- 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 P210N
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 210
- 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
- N4873K
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Tucson International Airport (TUS), Tucson, AZTo Dallas Love Field (DAL), Dallas, TX
- 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
- En route · cruise
- 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- 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
- Electrical system › Failure
- Pilot in command › Gear down and locked, not verified
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During the landing roll, the airplane's left main landing gear collapsed and the airplane collided with a taxiway sign. While en route to his destination, the battery warning light illuminated, indicating that the electrical system was not charging. The pilot performed the emergency checklist items; however, the alternator would not reset. The pilot then reversed course to return to the departure airport. The pilot turned off all nonessential electrical equipment in an attempt to conserve battery power. The pilot extended the landing gear and 10 degrees of flaps, then turned the master switch off. The pilot later told responding airport police officers that he did not wait for the gear enunciator lights to turn green indicating that the landing gear was down-and-locked before shutting off the electrical master switch. As the airplane approached the airport, the pilot turned the master switch back on, but the battery had fully drained. The pilot said that he was unsure if the gear were down and locked so on final approach he pumped the emergency gear extension handle. During the landing roll, the left main gear collapsed. Post accident examination of the electrical system revealed that the main alternator field wire and power wire terminals were broken due to a vibration of the alternator. The alternator was not secure on its mounting bracket due to fretting on the forward portion of the alternator bracket housing, which had enlarged the holes into an oval shape. When the alternator and bracket were touched, the entire assembly would move.
Probable cause
the failure of the electrical charging system and pilot's failure to verify that the gear was down-and-locked prior to the complete electrical system failure.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX04LA108
- Event ID
- 20040203X00153
- Case number
- LAX04LA108
- 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: 0718bca01c136301c8c0e89c32d0146699a9b89a1f9790bfbc1d8152395ce325; retrieved 2026-09-22T08:01:09.217Z.