ERA10LA330 · Czech Aircraft Works Spol SRO SPORTCRUISER
L&L Light Sport Aviation Czech Aircraft Works Spol SRO SPORTCRUISER · Accident: landing gear collapse
From Freehold Airport (1I5) to Freehold Airport (1I5)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA10LA330
- 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
Czech Aircraft Works Spol SRO SPORTCRUISER
- Aircraft type
- Czech Aircraft Works SPORTCRUISER
- 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
- N832LL
- Operator
- L&L Light Sport Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Freehold Airport (1I5), Freehold, NYTo Freehold Airport (1I5), Freehold, NY
- 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 from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The student pilot was practicing landings in a special light sport aircraft on an asphalt runway. After a soft touchdown, the nosegear collapsed and the airplane skidded approximately 30 feet before coming to rest on the runway. Examination of the wreckage revealed damage to the forward fuselage and firewall. The nosegear fork assembly separated from the nosegear strut on one end, and separated from the nosewheel on the other end. Further examination of the nosegear assembly revealed the fork of the assembly consisted of two aluminum fork leaves riveted together, which exhibited cracks. The inner fork leaf, which extended further than the outer leaf, had through holes for the wheel’s axle. The inner fork leaf was found to also have cracks on the side opposite the one that had separated. Microscopic examination revealed that the fractures on both pieces of the inner fork leaf were due to fatigue that initiated at multiple origins. Collectively, the fatigue cracks went through the thickness of the fork leaf. The large number of fatigue cracks was consistent with the nose gear fork assembly deteriorating for an extended period of time. The cracks were of a size that could be identified by visual examination. The nosegear strut exhibited slant fractures consistent with overstress. The airplane's most recent annual inspection was completed about 3 months, and 38 hours of operation, prior to the accident.
Probable cause
The failure of the nosegear fork assembly due to fatigue. Contributing to the accident was an inadequate recent annual inspection.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA10LA330
- Event ID
- 20100624X50724
- Case number
- ERA10LA330
- 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, coordinates. 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: 43b62b3f4e2683d05cdeb5ad29dc7adec378ca465445e9386a63cc636b734532; retrieved 2026-09-15T14:29:42.136Z.