ERA10LA005 · Cessna 210
Cessna 210 · Accident: system/component malfunction/failure (non-power) on approach
From Bowman Field (LOU) to Bowman Field (LOU)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA10LA005
- 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 210
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 210
- 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
- N9443T
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Bowman Field (LOU), Louisville, KYTo Bowman Field (LOU), Louisville, KY
- 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
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft systems
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During a flight review, the commercial pilot attempted to lower the landing gear but, after the gear-up light extinguished, the gear down light would not illuminate. After multiple attempts to lower the landing gear, the flight instructor declared an emergency, took control of the airplane, and prepared for a gear-up landing. During touchdown, the airplane left the paved portion of the runway, and was substantially damaged.
A postaccident examination of the landing gear system revealed that the hydraulic nose gear door actuator line on the right side of the aircraft failed due to fatigue at the flared end of the line. Review of maintenance records revealed that a high pressure electric fuel pump had been installed in close proximity to the failed line. No identification information or manufacturer information was present on the line and the straight sections of the tubing were not completely straight indicating that it had been bent by hand. A wear mark corresponding to significant contact with another object was observed on the aft side of the upper horizontal portion of the line which was covered by a plastic sleeve wrapped in electrical tape. It was likely that contact at that location produced excessive bending loads on the hydraulic line at the flare which lead to the fatigue fracture. Removal of the plastic sleeve which appeared to have been installed as a chaff guard revealed the existence of two other wear marks on the hydraulic line, one of which was approximately 50 percent of the wall thickness deep. The location of the wear marks corresponded to the location of the electric pump that had been installed and its fuel line fittings.
According to the Federal Aviation Administration, tubing should not be nicked, cut, dented, collapsed, or twisted beyond approved limits. When inspection shows a line to be damaged or defective, the entire line should be replaced or, if the damaged section is localized, a repair section may be inserted. Minor dents and scratches in tubing may be repaired. Scratches or nicks not deeper than 10 percent of the wall thickness in aluminum alloy tubing, that are not in the heel of a bend, may be repaired by burnishing with hand tools. Lines with severe die marks, seams, or splits should be replaced. Any crack or deformity in a flare is unacceptable and cause for rejection. A dent less than 20 percent of the tube diameter is not objectionable unless it is in the heel of a bend.
Probable cause
A malfunction of the landing gear extension system due to a fractured hydraulic line. Contributing to the accident was the inadequate inspection and maintenance of the hydraulic line.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA10LA005
- Event ID
- 20091004X34426
- Case number
- ERA10LA005
- 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: 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: 1b61fdb0b8aa59f6116daac0c6a8a316c7c1ca2092556b81a4e52ecbb6bcd19f; retrieved 2026-09-15T13:22:39.340Z.