WPR16LA015 · Cessna 310J
Leading Edge Aviation Cessna 310J · Accident: landing gear collapse
From Tucson International Airport (TUS) to Tucson International Airport (TUS)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR16LA015
- 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 310J
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 310
- 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
- N3123L
- Operator
- Leading Edge Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Tucson International Airport (TUS), Tucson, AZTo Tucson International Airport (TUS), Tucson, AZ
- Aircraft age
- About 50 years (built 1965)
- 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 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 handling/service
- Aircraft › Aircraft systems
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, not marked as estimated; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The commercial pilot and his passenger were returning to the airport after a 30-minute personal flight. The pilot reported that he configured the airplane for landing but that the landing gear down indication did not illuminate. The pilot cycled the landing gear several times, but the landing gear down indication still did not illuminate. After an air traffic controller confirmed that the landing gear was down, the pilot chose to initiate the landing. The airplane touched down uneventfully, but, about 3 seconds later, the right main landing gear (MLG) collapsed. The airplane subsequently veered right and departed the right side of the runway, which resulted in substantial damage to the right aileron and elevator.
A postaccident examination of the landing gear system revealed that the right MLG down-lock tension was about 30 lbs less than the tension prescribed by the airplane's service manual. The fork bolt normally used to adjust the down-lock tension was covered in dirt and oil. Examination also revealed that the MLG nonadjustable drive tube had separated outboard a few inches from a clevis fitting. The signatures on the tube indicated that it failed in compression on the forward/aft plane.
A review of maintenance records revealed that the airplane's last annual inspection occurred about 4 months before the accident. The condition of the fork bolt indicates that it had not been adjusted during this inspection. Further, the pilot reported that the rigging procedure in the service manual, which included an item to verify the landing gear down-lock brace tension, was not used during any recent inspections. Maintenance personnel's failure to perform the rigging procedure during the airplane's most recent annual inspection likely led to the insufficient down-lock tension and the drive tube's failure and the subsequent collapse of the right MLG due to the compression forces experienced upon touchdown.
Probable cause
The insufficient right main landing gear (MLG) down-lock tension due to maintenance personnel's failure to perform a rigging procedure during the airplane's most recent inspection, which resulted in the right MLG collapsing during landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR16LA015
- Event ID
- 20151021X31937
- Case number
- WPR16LA015
- 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: 3d7b385362ffa8dbc70b3865b6b6bef6bc2138e130421dd14a432ff58277d427; retrieved 2026-09-16T02:54:42.268Z.