CHI08LA044 · Aero Commander GA-500-B
Aero Commander GA-500-B · Accident: gear collapsed during landing
From CPS · Cahokia, MO to Charles B. Wheeler Downtown Airport (MKC)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI08LA044
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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
Aero Commander GA-500-B
- Aircraft type
- Aero Commander GA-500
- 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
- N444CB
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From CPS · Cahokia, MOTo Charles B. Wheeler Downtown Airport (MKC), Kansas City, MO
- 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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
- Landing
- 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
- Gear collapsed
- 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
- Pilot in command › Gear extension, delayed
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 reported that he performed the landing checklist while he was on a visual approach following jet traffic to the runway. He lowered the landing gear and flaps, and confirmed that the three green lights illuminated. He reported that the flare and landing were normal, and when the nose gear touched the runway he applied brake pressure. He reported that the "main landing gear collapsed and I could no longer maintain centerline of the runway." The airplane skidded on its belly for about 270 feet. The inspection of the airplane revealed that the left and right main landing gear were folded back with the wheels canted sideways and resting on the runway. The nose gear was in the down position. The landing gear handle was found in the down and locked position. When the master switch was turned on, the nose gear down lock light was on, and the left and right main gear lock lights were not on. The airplane was raised up using a forklift and aircraft jacks. When the main landing gear were free of the runway, both main landing gear locked in place in the down position. When the airplane was lowered onto its main landing gear, the two main landing gear lights illuminated. The propellers had not struck the runway during the accident, so the engines were started and the airplane was taxied back to the operator's hangar. The inspection of the main landing gear revealed that there was no evidence that the airplane's main landing gear lock down mechanism had failed on either the left or right main landing gear.
Probable cause
The pilot delayed lowering the landing gear in the landing sequence and the main gear were not in the down and locked position upon touchdown.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI08LA044
- Event ID
- 20071212X01934
- Case number
- CHI08LA044
- 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: local date, investigation status, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2007-11-15.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 99c0b285564a6f83d7690a286efe4a6941091b6c2bf1b28d286cd4292bc0af39; retrieved 2026-09-18T14:40:26.519Z.