Piedmont Airlines Bombardier DHC8 102 accident
Bombardier DHC8 102 · Accident: abnormal runway contact during landing
From Philadelphia International Airport (PHL) to Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR)
Event
- NTSB case
- DCA13FA094
- 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 DHC8 102
- Aircraft type
- Bombardier DHC8
- 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
- N934HA
- Operator
- Piedmont Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Philadelphia International Airport (PHL), Philadelphia, PATo Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR), Newark, NJ
- 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 · 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
- Abnormal runway contact
- 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
While on an instrument approach to the airport, when the flight crew attempted to lower the landing gear, they received an unsafe indication on the left main landing gear (MLG). They conducted a fly by of the airport control tower, and the controller verified that the left MLG was only partially extended. The flight crew performed the alternate landing gear extension procedure and worked with company maintenance to troubleshoot the failure, however, the left MLG would not extend after multiple attempts. Although the first officer indicated that he became confused after the sixth step of the alternate landing gear extension procedure, post accident testing determined that this did not have any effect on the outcome Because the left MLG would not extend, the captain elected to conduct the landing with all gear retracted to minimize the likelihood of a loss of directional control after touchdown. All passengers and crew successfully evacuated after the airplane came to a rest on the runway.
Postaccident testing confirmed that the left MLG would not deploy using the normal or alternate gear extension systems. Examination of the landing gear components found that the left MLG uplock roller was seized and the groove on the left uplock latch was out of tolerance. The seized uplock roller and worn latch caused the forces to exceed the crews capability to release the landing gear by use of the alternate gear extension system.
Examination of the operators maintenance records indicated that the uplock rollers were to be inspected every 220 flight hours and that they were to be lubricated only on condition. The accident airplanes left MLG uplock was inspected 11 times in year prior to the accident. In all instances, the inspection paperwork indicated that the roller rotated freely and did not require lubrication for the last. Further, the uplock latches were to be visually inspected every 440 flight hours. The latches were not required to be measured and were replaced only on condition. The last measurement of the left MLG latch on the accident airplane occurred 10 years prior to the accident. After the accident, the operator modified the maintenance procedures to include regular lubrication of the rollers and to measure the wear of the uplock latch.
Probable cause
the frozen left main landing gear (MLG) uplock roller due to lack of lubrication and the uplock latch that had worn beyond acceptable tolerances, which prevented the flight crew from extending the left MLG using the alternate extension system. Contributing to the accident were the operator's improper maintenance practices, which did not detect the lubrication issue with the roller and the wear of the latch.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DCA13FA094
- Event ID
- 20130519X11737
- Case number
- DCA13FA094
- 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: d8a26d8d15eaa1d4d437a7274ace12bbc23054ba5118a46c4c1ae995a0b2a073; retrieved 2026-09-15T21:35:55.837Z.