ERA18LA178 · Piper PA 34-200
Spaceport Aviation Piper PA 34-200 · Accident: loss of control on ground during landing
From Space Coast Regional Airport (TIX) to Umatilla Municipal Airport (X23)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA18LA178
- 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
Piper PA 34-200
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-34
- 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
- N56213
- Operator
- Spaceport Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Space Coast Regional Airport (TIX), Titusville, FLTo Umatilla Municipal Airport (X23), Umatilla, FL
- Aircraft age
- About 45 years (built 1973)
- 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 · 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
- Loss of control on ground
- 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 oper/perf/capability
- Aircraft › Aircraft systems
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot receiving instruction and the flight instructor were conducting an instructional flight. During the approach to the destination airport, the pilot receiving instruction lowered the landing gear, and the instructor confirmed that the down-and-locked indications were all green. After touchdown and during the landing roll, the airplane suddenly entered an uncommanded and violent right swerve, which the pilot receiving instruction could not correct with full left brake, rudder, and aileron inputs. Subsequently, the airplane departed the runway and impacted a drainage ditch.
Postaccident examination of the airplane revealed that the upper and lower torque links of the right main landing gear (MLG) were undamaged and not attached; the attachment hardware was not in place nor recovered. Examination of the left MLG revealed that the upper and lower torque links remained connected, but a cotter pin was not found installed through the castellated nut and drilled bolt.
A review of the airplane's maintenance logbooks revealed that, about 1 month before the accident, the attachment hardware for the left and right torque links was replaced, which included the installation of cotter pins. The mechanic who signed off the inspection stated that, during subsequent maintenance, both torque links' cotter pins were removed and that, although the attachment hardware at both torque links was subsequently tightened, neither of the torque link's cotter pins were installed before the airplane was approved for return to service. Therefore, it is likely that the right MLG torque link attachment hardware loosened over time due to the lack of a cotter pin and eventually separated from the airplane, which resulted in the torque link becoming disconnected and led to the pilot's subsequent inability to maintain directional control during landing.
Probable cause
Maintenance personnel ‘s failure to complete and verify the proper installation of the main landing gear (MLG) torque links’ attachment hardware, which resulted in the right MLG torque link disconnecting and the pilot’s subsequent inability to maintain directional control during the landing roll.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA18LA178
- Event ID
- 20180614X35255
- Case number
- ERA18LA178
- 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: c0c7f546925067026cc8c1f19db90acd53e1526b0181d9801a979fec6baa43b1; retrieved 2026-09-16T07:30:06.358Z.