LAX04LA287 · Cessna TR182
Cessna TR182 · Accident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From Zamperini Field (KTOA) to McClellan-Palomar Airport (KCRQ)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX04LA287
- 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 TR182
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 182
- 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
- N4657S
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Zamperini Field (KTOA), Torrance, CATo McClellan-Palomar Airport (KCRQ), Carlsbad, 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
- 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
- Fluid, hydraulic › Exhaustion
- Hydraulic system › Inoperative
- Hydraulic system, line › Separation
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot landed with the airplane's landing gear partially extended following a failure of a hydraulic supply line. While in cruise flight the pilot heard a bang from under the airplane, and at the same time the gear up light on the instrument panel went out. He cycled the landing gear switch with no effect. He then pumped the manual landing gear handle with no effect. The gear down light did not illuminate. The pilot decided to return to the airport, and after discussing the situation with the tower he landed with the nose gear down and the main gear about halfway down. Examination of the airplane revealed that a braided hydraulic line leading to the nose gear hydraulic actuator had separated and pulled out of its connector fitting. Red fluid was on the airplane's skin behind the nose gear. A review of the maintenance logbook revealed that the airplane had its annual inspection signed off on April 13, 2004. During that inspection one of the two nose gear hydraulic actuator lines had been replaced. The newly installed hydraulic line was not the one that failed. According to the manufacturer, the hydraulic hose for the nose gear is inspected "on condition" and replacement is at the discretion of the inspecting mechanic or the airplane owner.
Probable cause
A wheels up landing due to the failure of the hydraulic hose leading to the nose gear actuator, which depleted the hydraulic system of pressurized fluid.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX04LA287
- Event ID
- 20040810X01192
- Case number
- LAX04LA287
- 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: 24b02c1471d2da1794e7cc1811ed5518c75607893146f9e4d559879b44b85071; retrieved 2026-09-22T06:55:17.919Z.