GAA18CA459 · Herzog Aviation CCX-2000
Herzog Aviation CCX-2000 · Accident: loss of control on ground during landing
From Bend Municipal Airport (BDN) to Bend Municipal Airport (BDN)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA18CA459
- 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
Herzog Aviation CCX-2000
- Aircraft type
- Herzog CCX-2000
- 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
- N116PM
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Bend Municipal Airport (BDN), Bend, ORTo Bend Municipal Airport (BDN), Bend, OR
- Aircraft age
- Built the same year (2018)
- 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 › 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 of the tailwheel-equipped, experimental, amateur-built airplane reported that, during the landing roll at his home airport, the left main landing gear (MLG) wheel exited the asphalt runway and entered gravel that bordered the runway. The pilot applied right rudder to steer the airplane back onto the runway, but at the point where the left MLG tire contacted the asphalt runway, the left MLG collapsed. The left wing struck the ground, and the airplane came to rest on the runway.
The airplane sustained substantial damage to the left wing spar and aileron.
The pilot reported that the left MLG shock absorber shaft had sheared off at the lock nut attached to the rod end, which he believed resulted in the left MLG collapsing. However, photographs provided by Federal Aviation Administration air safety inspectors revealed that the left MLG failed inward and underneath the fuselage of the airplane. Additionally, the photographs revealed ground scars on the asphalt runway from the left wing that could be traced from the runway centerline, about 90° back to that of the runway heading. Further, photographs revealed that the airplane was equipped with tundra tires, which would have put a lot of stress on the landing gear. The evidence indicates that the left MLG collapsed when the pilot attempted to steer the airplane back onto the runway.
The METAR at the airport reported that the wind about the time of the accident was variable at 3 knots, gusting to 12 knots. The pilot landed the airplane on runway 16.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain directional control during the landing roll, which resulted in a runway excursion and the subsequent collapse of the left main landing gear when he attempted to steer the airplane back onto the runway.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA18CA459
- Event ID
- 20180731X80544
- Case number
- GAA18CA459
- 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: a931be1dcd7c9366be34b951168d64945bfa36905e9b6bd8c2ece04c0dcaef9f; retrieved 2026-09-16T08:01:56.619Z.