GAA15CA206 · Cessna T210L
St. Croix Aviation Cessna T210L · Accident: landing gear not configured
From Lake Elmo Airport (21D) to Sky Harbor Airport (DYT)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA15CA206
- 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 T210L
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 210
- 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
- N1650X
- Operator
- St. Croix Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Lake Elmo Airport (21D), ST PAUL, MNTo Sky Harbor Airport (DYT), Duluth, MN
- Aircraft age
- About 40 years (built 1975)
- 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 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
- 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 reported that he began his descent in the airport traffic pattern when another airplane announced its position in the vicinity of the airport. The pilot turned his attention to the traffic and located it visually. The traffic collision avoidance system (TCAS) annunciated in the proximity of the other airplane. The turn to the base leg was made after passing the traffic. During the base and final legs, the gear warning horn annunciated and the pilot stated he had mistaken it for the TCAS. The pilot landed with the gear retracted and the airplane sustained substantial damage to fuselage supporting structure.
The pilot reported he was wearing noise cancelling headphones during the flight but did state he was able to hear the gear warning horn annunciate.
After the accident, the airplane was placed on jacks and the landing gear was extended using the airplane's own systems and there was no indication of abnormal operation.
The pilot reported no preimpact mechanical failures or malfunctions with the airframe or engine that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to extend the landing gear prior to landing, which resulted in substantial damage to the fuselage during landing. Contributing to the accident was the pilot's diverted attention to another airplane in the vicinity and that he inaccurately perceived the gear warning horn annunciator as the TCAS annunciator.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA15CA206
- Event ID
- 20150731X02207
- Case number
- GAA15CA206
- 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: 5e012048d5e72a75447a39a9b59e7b8369344ae08fa9d745bcd7b623b15adb89; retrieved 2026-09-16T02:36:17.889Z.