ERA12LA273 · Cessna T337B
Cessna T337B · Accident: system/component malfunction/failure (non-power) on approach
From Enterprise Municipal Airport (EDN) to Dothan Regional Airport (DHN)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA12LA273
- 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
Cessna T337B
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 337
- 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
- N2334S
- Operator
- Kevin R. Diel · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Enterprise Municipal Airport (EDN), Enterprise, ALTo Dothan Regional Airport (DHN), Dothan, AL
- 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
- Approach
- 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
- System/component malfunction/failure (non-power)
- 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
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
After flying in the local area for about 1.8 hours, the pilot returned to the departure airport. However, when he placed the landing gear selector handle to the down position before landing, the gear did not fully extend and lock into position. The pilot said that he attempted to lower the landing gear manually using the emergency landing gear selector handle but reported that he felt great resistance after several pump strokes. He then pitched the airplane up then pushed the control yoke forward, which fully raised the landing gear (as he intended), then he attempted numerous times to extend the landing gear without success. The pilot proceeded to an alternate airport, where he performed a low pass by the air traffic control tower and was informed that the landing gear was in an “unsafe” position. He again raised the landing gear and returned to the alternate airport for a gear-up landing. He landed on the grass adjacent to the paved runway with the front propeller feathered and in a horizontal position in compliance with the procedures spelled out in the Pilot’s Operating Handbook. The airplane slid for about 200 feet before coming to rest upright.
Postaccident, the airplane was raised with jacks, and a mechanic attempted to lower the landing gear using the emergency gear extension handle. The nose landing gear went into the down and locked position; however, the mechanic reported that the main landing gear only extended through about half of its cycle before the emergency gear extension handle “…came into a hydraulic lock." The mechanic was able to manually push the main landing gears into the locked position, and the airplane was lowered from the jacks. The airplane’s hydraulic powerpack was not available for testing; no cause for the landing gear malfunction could be determined.
Probable cause
The failure of the landing gear to extend and lock, despite troubleshooting attempts using normal and emergency procedures. The reason for the failure could not be determined because the systems were unavailable for testing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA12LA273
- Event ID
- 20120409X10833
- Case number
- ERA12LA273
- 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: eed43f6cf3b70578c8146e6bbbe0d1522117380e00b397bc289b2838d97ec0a7; retrieved 2026-09-15T17:41:12.760Z.