ERA12LA117 · Piper PA-44-180
Airline Transport Professionals Corp of USA Piper PA-44-180 · Accident: landing gear collapse
From DeKalb Peachtree Airport (PDK) to Gwinnett County Briscoe Field (LZU)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA12LA117
- 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
Piper PA-44-180
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-44
- 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
- N790GK
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From DeKalb Peachtree Airport (PDK), Atlanta, GATo Gwinnett County Briscoe Field (LZU), Lawrenceville, 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 · landing roll
- 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 as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While configuring the airplane for a power-off stall, the pilots noted that there was an unsafe gear indication after selecting the landing gear to the down position. The flight instructor made several unsuccessful attempts to extend the landing gear using the emergency gear extension procedures, but the light did not illuminate. The pilot reported the condition to the air traffic controller, and he maneuvered the airplane for a low approach, and the controller advised the pilot that the gear appeared to be down. During the landing roll all three landing gears remained extended, but as the airplane slowed, the right main landing gear collapsed, and the airplane veered off the runway colliding with a runway light. A postaccident examination of the right main landing gear revealed that the truss assembly hook assembly did not travel over the truss pin. The landing gear was tested, and the right main landing gear did not lock on any attempt. In addition, the right main landing gear truss bracket and stud had excessive friction and prevented the side brace from fully rotating, subsequently preventing the truss hook from traveling over the lock pin. The right main landing gear truss bracket pin had little or no grease present; however, the left main landing gear truss bracket pin had grease indications around the pin and zerk fitting. A review of the airframe maintenance records indicated that about a month before the accident, the airplane had completed a 100-hour inspection and a side brace mount assembly was installed in the right main landing gear. The mechanic who performed the maintenance stated that he could not find any guidance in the maintenance manual on how to remove and install the new bushing; therefore, he replaced the bushing and verified that there was movement between the two parts, and then reinstalled the side brace assembly on the airplane. The mechanic did not follow the proper procedures as described in the manufacturer maintenance manual. The accident occurred about 38 hours after the 100-hour inspection.
Probable cause
The mechanic's improper installation and lubrication of the bushing on the right main landing gear truss assembly, which resulted in the landing gear not locking in the down position.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA12LA117
- Event ID
- 20111221X34021
- Case number
- ERA12LA117
- 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: 63588acd8196a19721fc5dac3fefc461603c8e344c3a1919ef231e1d22dfe047; retrieved 2026-09-15T17:01:07.276Z.