Air Wisconsin Airlines Flight 3919
Bombardier CL-600-2B19 · Incident: system/component malfunction/failure (non-power) on approach
From Norfolk International Airport (ORF) to Philadelphia International Airport (PHL)
Event
- NTSB case
- DCA09IA017
- 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
- Incident
- 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
- Airline
- 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
Bombardier CL-600-2B19
- Aircraft type
- Bombardier CL-600
- 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
- N407AW
- Operator
- Air Wisconsin Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Norfolk International Airport (ORF), Norfolk, VATo Philadelphia International Airport (PHL), Philadelphia, PA
- 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 121: Air Carrier
- 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
- Approach
- 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
- System/component malfunction/failure (non-power)
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Minor
Cause areas
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The flight crew had indications of a landing gear problem during approach. After unsuccessfully attempting to lower the gear, the flight crew elected to make an emergency landing with only the nose gear and right main landing gear "down and locked". After touch down, the airplane came to rest on its right main landing gear, nose gear and the left wingtip and flaps, resulting in minor damage. Post-incident examination of the maintenance records and airplane revealed that the left and right main landing gear (MLG) uplock assemblies had been replaced prior to the incident flight. No anomalies were found with the installation of the right MLG uplock assembly; however, the upper attachment bolt in the left MLG uplock assembly was improperly installed and had not properly been inspected. As installed, the upper attachment bolt did not engage the uplock assembly, which allowed the uplock assembly to pivot inboard about the lower attachment bolt and the uplock release cable no longer allowed the lever full travel to release the uplock. The left and right uplock assemblies had been replaced by two different mechanics and neither mechanic witnessed the gear swing test, but each signed the work package off as being completed after making a verbal turnover to the day shift supervisor. This was inconsistent with company policies and procedures. The installation was inspected and there were several discrepancies noted concerning the left gear assembly installation. Although the discrepancies were corrected, they were not properly documented. Additionally, the inspector did not use a mirror to examine the components in the darkened gear well and used an abbreviated functional check procedure instead of the manual gear extend test procedure specified in the maintenance manual. The mechanic who replaced the right uplock assembly stated that he had replaced uplocks on other airplanes but not the accident type airplane. The inspector stated that he had no experience inspecting uplock assemblies, nor did he recall ever having removed or replaced a gear uplock assembly as a mechanic. Based upon findings of the investigation, the NTSB issued Safety Recommendation A-10-96 and -97, dated May 28, 2010.
Probable cause
the failure of the maintenance personnel to properly complete the installation, and the inspection personnel to conduct the proper functional test, of the left main landing gear uplock assembly.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DCA09IA017
- Event ID
- 20081215X93019
- Case number
- DCA09IA017
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
Source notes (5)
- 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. 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: 7e69f4e941a02f98a96257312f98d38d98b84f209a42ca96e2472b40d4272ce6; retrieved 2026-09-15T10:36:17.616Z.
- Corrected after a review of the NTSB narrative, which states these values explicitly: departure. Typo in city name; airport code ORF is Norfolk International Airport, Norfolk, VA.