CEN10LA302 · Beech C90
Federal Aviation Administration (ASW-280) Beech C90 · Accident: landing gear collapse
From Perot Field/Fort Worth Alliance Airport (AFW) to Perot Field/Fort Worth Alliance Airport (AFW)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN10LA302
- 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 C90
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 90
- 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
- N20
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Perot Field/Fort Worth Alliance Airport (AFW), Fort Worth, TXTo Perot Field/Fort Worth Alliance Airport (AFW), Fort Worth, TX
- 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
- Aircraft › Fluids/miscellaneous hardware
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
As the landing gear was extended, the flightcrew heard a loud "bang" and observed a “Gear Unsafe” indication. After making a low pass, tower personnel reported that the main gear appeared to be down but that the nose gear was only partially extended. The certificated flight instructor raised the landing gear and made another low pass. Tower personnel said the main gear was up, but the nose gear was still only partially extended. The flightcrew elected to return to their home base and land. As speed dissipated, the nose gear folded and the airplane slid to a stop. A postaccident examination revealed that the nose gear actuator had failed due to insufficient lubrication of the nut assembly threads. The manufacturer recommends that the actuator be overhauled or replaced every 8000 cycles, or 6 years, whichever occurs first. At this time, the screw and nut assembly is to be greased. The failed actuator had accrued 1,576 cycles and 951.2 hours time-in-service. The maintenance manual does not require in-service lubrication of landing gear actuator.
Probable cause
The failure of the nose gear actuator due to insufficient lubrication of the nut assembly threads.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN10LA302
- Event ID
- 20100607X40152
- Case number
- CEN10LA302
- 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: 02fb1a54feff9795255e33d2685c3adedc9161fcd8ec970286aefc7b1dcdd1ee; retrieved 2026-09-15T14:22:36.195Z.