FLIGHT FINDINGSAVIATION OCCURRENCE MAP
Back to map

WPR22LA124 · Cessna 310R

10 Mar 2022 · McGrath, AK, United States

Cessna 310R · Accident: landing gear collapse while taxiing

From an unrecorded airport to Ruby Airport (PARY)

Report a problem

Event

NTSB case
WPR22LA124
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 310R

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
N3UR
Operator
Unknown
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From not recordedTo Ruby Airport (PARY), Ruby, AK
Aircraft age
About 48 years (built 1974)
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
Taxi · into takeoff position
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
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 back-taxied the airplane for departure and then began a 180° left turn to align the airplane with the runway centerline when the right main landing gear collapsed. The gear collapse resulted in substantial damage to the right elevator. A postaccident examination of the airplane revealed fractures to the bellcrank lower arm fork, bellcrank, pivot bolt, and trunnion bellcrank lug at the right main landing gear, which all displayed signatures consistent with overstress. The airplane had recently been repaired following another right main landing gear failure. During the repair the accident pilot, who was also the mechanic, adjusted the down lock tension as required by the maintenance manual and returned the airplane to service after he determined that the tension was within limits. A statement from the airplane manufacturer suggested that the failure may have been the result of an improper down lock tension adjustment. However, there was insufficient evidence in the investigation to show whether the pilot performed the adjustment incorrectly, thus the cause of the landing gear failure is undetermined.

Probable cause

A failure of the right main landing gear bellcrank lower arm fork, bellcrank, pivot bolt, and trunnion bellcrank lug for undetermined reasons.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record WPR22LA124
Event ID
20220316104790
Case number
WPR22LA124
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: 84a3b225461cc8de3cf8d65e61fdb62f63855040866e6f1c8b188582db373cbc; retrieved 2026-09-16T15:02:45.018Z.