ERA10LA351 · Champion 7ECA
N117VR Champion 7ECA · Accident: landing gear collapse
From Merritt Island Airport (COI) to Thomasville Regional Airport (TVI)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA10LA351
- 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
Champion 7ECA
- Aircraft type
- Champion 7
- 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
- N73PC
- Operator
- N117VR
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Merritt Island Airport (COI), Merritt Island, FLTo Thomasville Regional Airport (TVI), Thomasville, GA
- 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
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated that as the airplane touched down on the runway he heard a "pop" or a "snap" sound. The airplane collided with the runway on its right side and slid down the surface until coming to rest. A postaccident examination of the airplane revealed that a bolt on the right main landing gear was absent. The bolt, which holds the oleo, or shock absorber, unit in the housing, was incorrectly installed above and through the oleo assembly. This resulted in the bolt coming out of the housing, which in turn led to the cylinder and spring overextending out of its respective housing. There was no evidence of fatigue, stress, or corrosion on the failed component. A review of the airframe logbook indicated that the last annual inspection was conducted about 45 days and 3.8 flight hours prior to the accident. The airplane's parts manual stated that after performing maintenance of the oleo the mechanics should be certain that the bolt passes through the retainer at the top end of the oleo. The manual further warned that if this is not done, the oleo will fall out when the airplane takes off.
Probable cause
The improper reinstallation of the airplane’s oleo piston assembly during an annual inspection, resulting in the collapse of the right main landing gear during touchdown.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA10LA351
- Event ID
- 20100709X34453
- Case number
- ERA10LA351
- 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: da389284fa26541556cf87d3c913e4d6bc52e00303c7645da551fbc3980800f5; retrieved 2026-09-15T14:40:17.297Z.