SEA04LA108 · Cessna 421B
Cessna 421B · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during takeoff
From S07 · Bend, OR to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA04LA108
- 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 421B
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 421
- 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
- N332CC
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From S07 · Bend, ORTo not recorded
- 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
- Takeoff · roll/run
- 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
- Landing gear, normal brake system › Not operating
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Shortly after applying power for the takeoff roll, the airplane pulled to the right. The pilot reduced power and applied corrective action to the left side brake, however the braking action had no affect and the airplane continued off the side of the runway. The nose gear subsequently collapsed. Inspection of the left side landing gear and brake assembly found that the caliper side pressure plate was cocked and signs of metal to metal gouging on the brake disc was present, and that two of the pads (on the caliper side pressure plate) were missing. Maintenance records indicated that the aircraft had been signed-off for an annual inspection and that the description of work performed indicated that the brakes and tires had been serviced. The aircraft had flown a one hour flight since the annual inspection. During that flight, one takeoff and one landing was accomplished without incident. The accident flight was the second flight after the inspection. Inspection of the nose gear found that the right side of the nose gear trunnion fractured off from the main body in two separate pieces at the lug transition radius. A visual inspection of the fracture surface found multiple origins consistent with fatigue cracking. The fatigue region initiated at the lug radius on the lower side of the lug and propagated toward the interior consuming approximately 5% of the cross-sectional area, with the remaining region being overstress. The Materials Engineer that inspected the trunnion reported that even though the lug contained pre-existing cracking, it appeared that the failure of the component was the result of a single large overload event.
Probable cause
On ground encounter with terrain during the takeoff roll as a result of the left side brake not operating. Inadequate maintenance inspection, overload of the nose landing gear and soft terrain were factors.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA04LA108
- Event ID
- 20040621X00842
- Case number
- SEA04LA108
- 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: 88f9fbc711fe66d1715464fec9d5c4e7b7c1d724f1f5f07a3958a4bfa58d92c9; retrieved 2026-09-22T07:19:26.897Z.