WPR21LA323 · Cessna 177RG
Cessna 177RG · Accident: system/component malfunction/failure (non-power) during landing
From St Johns Industrial Air Park (KSJN) to Sayre Municipal Airport (3O4)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR21LA323
- 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
Cessna 177RG
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 177
- 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
- N8029G
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From St Johns Industrial Air Park (KSJN), St Johns, AZTo Sayre Municipal Airport (3O4), Sayre, OK
- Aircraft age
- About 51 years (built 1970)
- 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
- 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
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that, shortly after takeoff, the airplane was not performing as expected. He observed that the main landing gear did not fully retract so he diverted to a nearby airport. Despite multiple attempts to cycle the landing gear, which included utilizing the emergency landing gear extension procedures, he was able to extend the nose landing gear, but he was unable to obtain a positive down and locked indication on the main landing gear. As fuel levels decreased, the pilot landed the airplane with the main landing gear in the retracted position. A postaccident examination of the airplane revealed hydraulic fluid on the undercarriage of the airplane behind the nose landing gear wheel well. The nose landing gear up hydraulic flex line showed signs of leakage. The hydraulic flex line was disconnected, and pressure tested with 200 ft pounds of nitrogen. A leak in the hydraulic flex line was identified near the top of the line, but well below the fitting. It is likely that the identified leak in the hydraulic line led to a loss of hydraulic fluid and did not allow the main landing gear to extend and lock into place. As a result, the pilot made a gear up landing on the runway.
Probable cause
The failure of the nose gear hydraulic flex line, which resulted in a loss of hydraulic fluid which prevented the main landing gear from fully extending and locking into place during landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR21LA323
- Event ID
- 20210816103708
- Case number
- WPR21LA323
- 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, coordinates, cause areas. 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: 59ae27d58ccf9504a2f80c13726cdf74305d9944c08ca242733052a423e6593d; retrieved 2026-09-16T14:25:31.478Z.