LAX04LA230 · Cessna T210M
Cessna T210M · Accident: airframe, component or system failure on approach
From Gravelly Valley Airport (1Q5) to Charles M. Schulz Sonoma County Airport (STS)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX04LA230
- 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 T210M
- 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
- N121JR
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Gravelly Valley Airport (1Q5), Upper Lake, CATo Charles M. Schulz Sonoma County Airport (STS), Santa Rosa, CA
- 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
- Approach
- 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
- Landing gear, normal retraction/extension assembly › Failure, total
- Miscellaneous, bolt/nut/fastener/clamp/spring › Improperly serviced
- 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
The airplane landed with the main landing gear retracted after a main landing gear door actuator failure. The pilot attempted to extend the landing gear for landing, and stated that the main landing gear would not extend, and the landing gear down-and-locked light did not illuminate. The pilot noted that the hydraulic motor continued running and that there was plenty of hydraulic fluid in the reservoir. After performing all of the recommended emergency procedures for landing gear malfunctions to no avail, the pilot landed with the nose landing gear extended and the main landing gear only partially extended. Upon landing, the airplane tilted and drifted to the left of the runway, where it impacted a sign. Post-accident examination of the landing gear revealed the right main landing gear door actuator failed, and the retaining clip was installed improperly. The failed landing gear door actuator was worked on 10.7 hours prior to the accident.
Probable cause
Maintenance personnel's improper installation and servicing of a retaining ring, which resulted in the failure of the landing gear door actuator and failure of the landing gear extension system during landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX04LA230
- Event ID
- 20040608X00761
- Case number
- LAX04LA230
- 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: cc10118d72b959d85f17c9782415213419e7858151a0a54e3cc28ed0a8992521; retrieved 2026-09-22T07:25:58.526Z.