Delta Private Jets Raytheon HAWKER 800XP accident
Raytheon HAWKER 800XP · Accident: system/component malfunction/failure (non-power) during initial climb
From Naples Municipal Airport (APF) to Kerrville / Kerr County Airport at Louis Schreiner Field (ERV)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA20LA008
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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
Raytheon HAWKER 800XP
- Aircraft type
- Raytheon HAWKER
- 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
- N86MN
- Operator
- Delta Private Jets
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Naples Municipal Airport (APF), Naples, FLTo Kerrville / Kerr County Airport at Louis Schreiner Field (ERV), Kerrville, TX
- Aircraft age
- About 22 years (built 1997)
- 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During the initial climb, the flight crew attempted to retract the landing gear; the main landing gear retracted normally but the nose landing gear failed to retract. Several attempts to retract and extend the nose landing gear to a locked position were unsuccessful and the flight crew completed an emergency landing, during which the airplane skidded to a stop on its nose and fuselage. The fuselage sustained substantial damage.
Examination of the nose landing gear actuator drag stay found that it was missing its nut, washer, and split pin, and deformation was observed in the attachment area. The nose landing gear leg was removed, overhauled, and re-installed by a contract maintenance facility as part of a broader routine maintenance inspection about 9 months before the accident. The airplane had flown 124 cycles since the removal and re-installation. The maintenance task reportedly followed in the maintenance manual required that the nut, washer, and split pin be installed during the installation, and records indicated that the installation task was performed by a mechanic and verified by a separate quality assurance inspector mechanic at the contract maintenance facility. There were no other inspections performed on the nose landing gear since the overhaul.
Thus, it is likely that the split pin was not installed during installation of the nose landing gear following the overhaul, and over the course of the 124 cycles after installation, the nut and washer backed out, which allowed for the actuator arm to disconnect from its attach point. As a result, the actuator arm was free to move during the retraction and extension cycles, which damaged its attachment area and ultimately led to its complete separation. This is consistent with the pilot’s report of hearing a thud and feeling vibration emanating from the nose landing gear area during the retraction cycle.
Probable cause
Maintenance personnel's improper installation of the nose landing gear assembly, which resulted in separation of the actuator arm and the failure of a nose landing gear to lock in place.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA20LA008
- Event ID
- 20191008X95051
- Case number
- ERA20LA008
- 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 2019-10-08.
- API snapshot SHA-256: bd7806c92803a98185276ebd32321b670605d614160824aa561c6ead89b8c084; retrieved 2026-09-16T10:19:50.544Z.