Colgan Air Bombardier Inc DHC-8-402 accident
Bombardier Inc DHC-8-402 · Accident: landing gear not configured
From Bill & Hillary Clinton National Airport/Adams Field (LIT) to George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH)
Event
- NTSB case
- DCA12FA058
- 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
- Airline
- 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
Bombardier Inc DHC-8-402
- Aircraft type
- Bombardier DHC-8
- 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
- N213WQ
- Operator
- Colgan Air
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Bill & Hillary Clinton National Airport/Adams Field (LIT), Little Rock, ARTo George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH), Houston, 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 121: Air Carrier
- 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
- 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 not configured
- 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
- 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
After take-off from the departure airport, the crew observed a master caution, an amber nose gear open advisory light, a landing gear inoperative caution light, and they noticed a different than normal airflow noise
During the flight, the crew heard a "thump" and noted that the previously observed caution lights had extinguished indicating that the nose gear was retracted and the nose gear doors were closed. In accordance with abnormal procedures checklists, and guidance from the company, the crew elected to use the Alternate Landing Gear Extension checklist to prepare for landing at the destination
After pulling the main gear release handle and the nose gear release handle the crew observed that the main landing gear indicated down and locked with green indicator lights, the nose landing gear did not indicate down and locked, and the red Nose Gear Unsafe light was illuminated. The crew landed the airplane with the main landing gear down and the nose landing gear retracted, and the airplane came to rest on the main gear and forward fuselage on the runway.
Post-accident, the nose gear was successfully extended multiple times using the alternate extension handle and the landing gear was also extended multiple times under hydraulic power with no anomalies noted. Testing of landing gear system components did not reveal any failures that should have prevented the gear from extending via the alternate extension method. The pull force required to extend the nose gear alternate release handle to a position where the nose gear released from the up and locked position was measured at approximately 72 lbs.
According to manufacturer's design requirements, the pull length on the alternate release handle should be approximately 11 inches with a force of 90 pounds.
A post-accident review of the alternate gear extension procedures was conducted in a full flight simulator by the investigation group with the participation of the accident flight crew. The pull force required and the pull length required to extend the nose gear using the alternate extension handle was determined to be significantly lower in the flight simulator as compared to the aircraft. There was no guidance contained in the alternate landing gear extension procedure specifying required pull forces when using the alternate extension handle. Subsequent to the accident, the manufacturer added details to the alternate landing gear extension procedure in the Airplane Flight Manual regarding the maximum pull forces that a pilot may experience when the alternate extension handle is pulled.
Probable cause
the nose landing gear alternate release handle was not pulled with sufficient enough force or distance to release the uplocks and allow extension of the nose landing gear.
Contributing to the accident was the dissimilar pull force and pull length set on the flight simulator that was used for flight crew training of alternate landing gear extension procedures and the lack of information available to crew members advising of the dissimilar pull force.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DCA12FA058
- Event ID
- 20120409X05702
- Case number
- DCA12FA058
- 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: b81b02a26fe4e8f0cdd11bddad2be37f3963c5f5ea9530c1102ba21cbb40644e; retrieved 2026-09-15T17:41:02.966Z.