CEN10LA143 · Beech 65-A90
Eagle Air Transport Beech 65-A90 · Accident: landing gear collapse
From DeKalb Taylor Municipal Airport (DKB) to DeKalb Taylor Municipal Airport (DKB)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN10LA143
- 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
Beech 65-A90
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 65
- 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
- N129LA
- Operator
- Eagle Air Transport
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From DeKalb Taylor Municipal Airport (DKB), DeKalb, ILTo DeKalb Taylor Municipal Airport (DKB), DeKalb, IL
- 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
- Landing · flare/touchdown
- 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
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The Beech King Air had undergone maintenance that included a landing gear disassembly and inspection in preparation for the airplane's sale. Following the landing gear inspection, the left main landing gear strut was overfilled to an extension that exceeded maintenance specifications due to the strut not being able to maintain the manufacturer's specified pressure/extension. In preparation for a maintenance test flight relating to engine throttle adjustments, an asymmetric left fuel load was used by the pilot in an attempt to compress the overextended strut at an airplane weight that was less than the maximum gross weight of the airplane. Upon completion of the flight, the pilot returned to the departure airport where he attempted a landing with a left quartering tailwind and with the airplane flaps fully retracted. The airplane touched down between the runway centerline and right side of the runway. The left main landing gear then collapsed, and the airplane veered off the left side of the runway. The pilot, who was the also the president of the company that performed the landing gear inspection and other maintenance items, reported that the landing gear was a Beech Queen Air part. Examination of the left main landing gear cylinder revealed that it separated at the lower joint above the upper torque knee. The joint exhibited corrosion and paint on its mating surface. The braze coverage in this area was noted to be acceptable with no anomalous voids. The separation was consistent with torsional overload. The examination also revealed that the landing gear shock assembly was a Beech Queen Air part that was not approved for installation on Beech King Air airplanes.
Probable cause
The collapse of the landing gear during landing due to the company's improper maintenance practices and the pilot's decision to take off with an overextended landing gear strut.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN10LA143
- Event ID
- 20100309X41006
- Case number
- CEN10LA143
- 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: edbd0e46f24f6a82cd3a7ed00e732139e9a41241113d7544b63d7b4d1699b7f8; retrieved 2026-09-15T13:43:55.442Z.