CEN19LA251 · Ryan NAVION B
Ryan NAVION B · Accident: part(s) separation from aircraft during landing
From Kenosha Regional Airport (ENW) to Chicago Midway International Airport (MDW)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN19LA251
- 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
Ryan NAVION B
- Aircraft type
- Ryan NAVION
- 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
- N27AW
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Kenosha Regional Airport (ENW), Kenosha, WITo Chicago Midway International Airport (MDW), Chicago, IL
- Aircraft age
- About 69 years (built 1950)
- 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
- Part(s) separation from aircraft
- 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 pilot reported that as the airplane touched down on the dry concrete runway, he heard a "snap" noise but that the landing was "smooth and normal." He taxied the entire length of the runway for the rollout but then had difficulty taxiing the airplane straight. The pilot thought that he had a flat tire until he exited the airplane and saw that the left main landing gear had failed. A postaccident examination revealed the left main landing gear upper side brace assembly fractured due to reverse bending fatigue at the circumferential weld between the middle tube and the fork at the inboard end of the assembly. The fatigue initiated from the tip of the weld in areas of incomplete weld penetration. The weld was performed during initial production of the component. The fatigue cracks extended radially outward from the interior surface of the tube, but the fatigue region did not intersect the outer surface. Thus, the cracks likely would not have been detected by visual inspection. The failure of the weld resulted in the displacement of the left main landing gear strut outboard toward the wingtip, which caused substantial damage to the underside of the left wing.
Probable cause
The failure of the left main landing gear upper side brace assembly during landing due to reverse bending fatigue as a result of the incomplete penetration of the circumferential weld during initial production of the component.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN19LA251
- Event ID
- 20190806X52246
- Case number
- CEN19LA251
- 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: e500e1fb086b5ee09d740c266bd1dc67720398c30460eca8ed1f9477d1800ea0; retrieved 2026-09-16T09:40:11.469Z.