WPR18LA264 · Cessna T210 N
Cessna T210 N · Accident: landing gear not configured
From John Wayne Orange County International Airport (KSNA) to San Luis County Regional Airport (KSBP)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR18LA264
- 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 T210 N
- 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
- N5340Y
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From John Wayne Orange County International Airport (KSNA), Santa Ana, CATo San Luis County Regional Airport (KSBP), San Luis Obispo, CA
- Aircraft age
- About 37 years (built 1981)
- 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
- 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
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The private pilot reported that during the approach to land after a cross-country flight, he lowered the landing gear and felt the gear extending into place. After visually observing the left main landing gear out the window, he thought that everything was normal for landing. As the airplane contacted the runway about 65 to 70 knots, he felt a bump from the right as the nose landing gear contacted the runway. The airplane veered to the right as it exited the runway, then completed a 180° turn before coming to rest in the runway safety area; the right horizontal stabilizer and right elevator impacted the ground and were buckled upward. The pilot reported that he did not remember seeing the landing gear indicator lights during the approach, nor did he hear the landing gear warning horn; however, the pilot was wearing a noise-cancelling headset during the flight that could have prevented him from hearing the warning horn.
Postaccident examination of the airplane revealed that the right main landing gear was collapsed. The landing gear extension motor was replaced, and no anomalies were noted when the landing gear was tested; the warning horn sounded, and landing gear indicator lights illuminated during the testing. It was revealed during the examination that the landing gear extension motor on the airplane at the time of the accident was the original pump installed during the airplane's manufacture about 37 years before the accident. The motor was disassembled and had internal wear, which likely prevented the landing gear from fully extending and locking into place during landing.
Probable cause
The failure of the landing gear extension motor due to wear, which resulted in the right main landing gear not fully extending and locking into place during landing. Contributing to the accident was the pilot’s failure to ensure that all three landing gear were down and locked before landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR18LA264
- Event ID
- 20180914X11146
- Case number
- WPR18LA264
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2018-09-15.
- API snapshot SHA-256: aa3bb034f0ea543a8ba3139b8c586905f2f466d179dc39c4a1d6998691bec323; retrieved 2026-09-16T08:14:41.939Z.