WPR20CA183 · Cessna 310 R
Angle Of Attack Aeronautics Cessna 310 R · Accident: landing gear collapse
From 7S1 · Twin Bridges, MT to Bert Mooney Airport (BTM)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR20CA183
- 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 310 R
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 310
- 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
- N87395
- Operator
- Angle Of Attack Aeronautics
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 7S1 · Twin Bridges, MTTo Bert Mooney Airport (BTM), Butte, MT
- Aircraft age
- About 45 years (built 1975)
- 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 collapse
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Pole
- 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
- Personnel issues › Psychological
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While on final approach to land, about 150 ft above the ground, the pilot maneuvered and descended the airplane away from a bird. The pilot then realized that he was on a lower approach path to the runway after he observed an airport perimeter fence, but felt that he could still perform a safe landing and increased engine power to continue the approach. The airplane’s left main landing gear then struck a fence post and the pilot initiated a go-around to return to the departure airport. After unsuccessful attempts to verify the left main landing gear was extended and locked, he initiated a landing with full flaps and in a right-wing low attitude. As the airplane touched down, the left main landing gear collapsed, the airplane veered left, exited the runway, and the left wing struck a runway sign. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the left wing. The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical failures or malfunctions with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain clearance from a fence post during final approach which resulted in a damage to the left main landing gear, and its subsequent collapse during landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR20CA183
- Event ID
- 20200615X63223
- Case number
- WPR20CA183
- 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: 5d17685aec6f0e9a616586789cdcc319b55c04a9250ccbe9661e2b28c306d83b; retrieved 2026-09-16T11:51:34.074Z.