WPR10LA090 · Cessna 310
Cessna 310 · Accident: system/component malfunction/failure (non-power) en route
From Prosser Airport (S40) to Tri Cities Airport (PSC)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR10LA090
- 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 310
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 310
- 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
- N2640C
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Prosser Airport (S40), Prosser, WATo Tri Cities Airport (PSC), Pasco, WA
- 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
- En route
- 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
The pilot reported that after departure he retracted the landing gear and the cabin heater simultaneously failed. He slowed the airplane and extended the landing gear in an effort to see if it would have an effect on the heater. After noting no change, he attempted to retract the landing gear again. There was no apparent movement in the landing gear position and the cockpit light was illuminated green in indication that the landing gear were down. He attempted to troubleshoot the problem to no avail. He maneuvered the airplane over the airport, where ground personnel confirmed that the landing gear were extended with the exception of the right main, which was retracted, but with the gear door extended. After numerous failed attempts to force the right main landing gear to extend, the pilot opted to land the airplane with all the landing gear in the retracted position. The airplane touched down in a tail-low attitude and settled onto the runway. Post accident examination revealed that the rod end of the up-lock push-pull tube on the right main landing gear had failed. According to the airplane manufacturer, the rod end of the tube was broken in tension overload, which is typically a result of improper rigging or a fatigue failure.
Probable cause
The failure of the right main landing gear up-lock.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR10LA090
- Event ID
- 20091222X20412
- Case number
- WPR10LA090
- 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. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2009-12-12.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 506978aa241816d0c645330848c011afb94064d4557e574d50eafee824da6dd9; retrieved 2026-09-15T13:35:04.561Z.