CEN21LA134 · Diamond Aircraft IND Inc DA20-C1
Sweet Aviation Diamond Aircraft IND Inc DA20-C1 · Accident: abnormal runway contact during landing
From Smith Field (SMD) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN21LA134
- 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
- Event fatalities
- Unknown
- 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
Diamond Aircraft IND Inc DA20-C1
- Aircraft type
- Diamond DA20
- 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
- N465US
- Operator
- Sweet Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Smith Field (SMD), Fort Wayne, INTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 15 years (built 2006)
- 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
- Abnormal runway contact
- 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
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot flew to a local airport to practice touch and go landings, entered the traffic pattern, and landed on the active runway. Upon touchdown, the airplane bounced. The pilot added power and recalled that the nose jumped up slightly during the climb. The pilot continued to his destination. During the landing, when the nose touched the runway surface, the pilot heard a “scraping” sound. After the airplane came to a complete stop, the two occupants exited the airplane uninjured. Examination of the airplane revealed that the wheel of the nose landing gear was missing. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the composite firewall. The missing wheel was later located at the previous airport where the pilot had performed the bounced touch and go landing. Examination of the wheel and tire assembly did not reveal any pre-existing anomalies. It is likely that the nose wheel assembly separated from the airplane during the bounced landing.
Probable cause
The pilot’s improper landing flare that resulted in a bounced touch and go landing and subsequent nose wheel separation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN21LA134
- Event ID
- 20210223102662
- Case number
- CEN21LA134
- 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: c2e73a23f9d46006dfe9b58fe079e67b488e5768063c7db982e2ab53e9ef6916; retrieved 2026-09-16T13:44:13.156Z.