SEA08LA117 · Rockwell 690C
Rockwell 690C · Accident: landing gear collapse while taxiing
From Minden-Tahoe Airport (MEV) to Monterey Regional Airport (MRY)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA08LA117
- 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
Rockwell 690C
- Aircraft type
- Rockwell 690
- 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
- N980AK
- Operator
- William D Killebrew · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Minden-Tahoe Airport (MEV), Minden, NVTo Monterey Regional Airport (MRY), Monterey, 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
- Taxi · into takeoff position
- Defining eventThe 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
- Landing gear collapse
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft systems
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While beginning a 90-degree right turn onto the active runway for takeoff, both the left and right main landing gear partially collapsed. A Federal Aviation Administration inspector said the airplane's clam shell gear doors remained in the closed position, which is inconsistent with the landing gear being in an intransit operating mode, and the gear select handle was found in the DOWN position. The left main landing gear's inboard clevis, which secures the left gear's inboard hydraulic actuator to the gear's trunnion boss, was fractured. It had been installed incorrectly and had missed the barrel nut, which retains the clevis in the trunnion. When removed, the clevis bolt rotated relatively easily and the nut appeared to be incorrectly located. Maintenance personnel who had installed the clevis during the previous inspection, 26 days and 13 operating hours before the accident, stated that the breakage of the clevis pin would not be caused by the installation. A metallurgical examination of the fracture region revealed that the clevis failed during a single bending overstress event. No preexisting cracks or corrosion were noted at the fracture and the laboratory could not determine an underlying reason for the overstress fracture. The main landing gear is retained in the down and locked position by hydraulic pressure being applied to the inboard main landing gear actuating cylinder, as well as being assisted by the outboard main landing gear (hydraulic-pneumatic) actuating cylinder. Additionally, bungee cords attached to the main landing gear drag braces assures that the main landing gear is locked and retained in the down position. As a result of these redundant features that are designed to ensure that the main landing gear is locked in the down position, the gear collapse cannot be positively attributed to the failure of the clevis. An inspection of the right main landing gear's components failed to reveal any anomalies that would have precluded normal operation. After the failed clevis was replaced, multiple landing gear retraction and extension cycles were performed with no anomalies noted. The reason for the gear collapse was undetermined.
Probable cause
The collapse of both main landing gear for undetermined reasons.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA08LA117
- Event ID
- 20080506X00608
- Case number
- SEA08LA117
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
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 2008-05-03.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 018606aecc0c49317f8c1814276a172ac6ec8528994f26046462050afae00ec7; retrieved 2026-09-15T09:36:34.458Z.