ERA17LA239 · Cessna 210L M
Irf Cessna 210L M · Accident: system/component malfunction/failure (non-power) during initial climb
From Morristown Municipal Airport (MMU) to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton International Airport (AVP)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA17LA239
- 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 210L M
- 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
- N732FJ
- Operator
- Irf
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Morristown Municipal Airport (MMU), Morristown, NJTo Wilkes-Barre/Scranton International Airport (AVP), Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, PA
- Aircraft age
- About 41 years (built 1976)
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
After takeoff, the pilot placed the landing gear handle in the up position; the gear started to retract, but the cycle never completed. The pilot attempted to recycle the gear back into the down position without success and subsequently used the manual emergency landing gear extension hand pump without success. He discussed the situation with a mechanic, and they determined that there was likely no hydraulic fluid in the system and no corrective action to remedy the situation. The pilot diverted to a nearby airport and performed a tower flyby, which confirmed that the gear were down and dangling but not locked. Upon touchdown, the landing gear folded back. The airplane tilted left and skidded to a stop, which resulted in substantial damage to the left stabilizer, left elevator, and left wingtip. Postaccident examination of the airplane revealed that the left landing gear door actuator had failed, and hydraulic fluid was observed in and around the left landing gear well. Subsequent maintenance revealed that a c-clip that held a cap in place at the end of the actuator had failed, which resulted in the release of the hydraulic fluid and pressure and subsequently prevented the landing gear system, including the manual emergency landing gear extension hand pump, from operating. The failure of the actuator component released all hydraulic pressure from the system, and the landing gear could not be extended into the down-and-locked position, which resulted in a gear collapse upon landing.
Probable cause
Failure of the left landing gear door actuator, which resulted in a loss of all hydraulic pressure and subsequent gear collapse on landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA17LA239
- Event ID
- 20170711X13833
- Case number
- ERA17LA239
- 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, cause areas. 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: 5b98e71a68b511a17d1f7f9291227935a37b7b0a8a4f15c94787eaddabe5f180; retrieved 2026-09-16T05:31:44.491Z.