CHI05LA047 · Learjet 25B
Goldstar International Learjet 25B · Accident: airframe, component or system failure during takeoff
From The Eastern Iowa Airport (CID) to McAllen Miller International Airport (MFE)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI05LA047
- 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
Learjet 25B
- Aircraft type
- Learjet 25
- 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
- N252BK
- Operator
- Goldstar International
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From The Eastern Iowa Airport (CID), Cedar Rapids, IATo McAllen Miller International Airport (MFE), McAllen, 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
- Takeoff
- 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
- Hydraulic system, seal › Failure, total
- Landing gear, steering system › Inoperative
- Pilot in command › Directional control, not possible
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 collided with a berm following a loss of directional control while landing. The airplane was on a 14 CFR Part 91 positioning flight at the time of the accident. The pilots reported that they encountered what they thought were rough spots on the runway during the takeoff roll. The captain reported that after takeoff, he called for the co-pilot to raise the gear and engage the yaw damper. The crew then noticed an unsafe gear indication for the nose gear. The captain stated they leveled off at 5,000 feet and decreased the airspeed so they could recycled the landing gear. Cycling the landing gear did not resolve the problem. The crew then requested to return to the departure airport for landing. The landing gear was extended and a gear down and locked indication for all three landing gear was observed. The captain stated that on touchdown, the co-pilot extended the spoilers and armed the thrust reversers. He stated that after the nose wheel touched down the airplane made a sharp left turn and traveled off the side of the runway through the grass. The airplane contacted a four-foot high berm prior to coming to a stop on another runway. The captain stated he attempted to taxi the airplane only to discover that they did not have any nose wheel steering. Post accident inspection revealed the seal on the nose gear strut had failed which prevented the nose gear from centering.
Probable cause
The pilot was not able to maintain directional control of the airplane due to the failure of the nose gear strut seal which prevented the nose wheel from centering. A factor associated with the accident was the berm that the airplane contacted.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI05LA047
- Event ID
- 20041223X02030
- Case number
- CHI05LA047
- 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: 470f47597826dbae9848ad0cc72b3a441cf5c629b83fb0e9a8d61d2689f7b71d; retrieved 2026-09-22T06:24:51.910Z.