WPR23LA213 · Cessna 210 B
Flying Nova Cessna 210 B · Accident: system/component malfunction/failure (non-power) during landing
From Auburn Municipal Airport (S50) to King County International Airport - Boeing Field (BFI)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR23LA213
- 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 210 B
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 210
- 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
- N9574X
- Operator
- Flying Nova
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Auburn Municipal Airport (S50), Auburn, WATo King County International Airport - Boeing Field (BFI), Seattle, WA
- Aircraft age
- About 61 years (built 1962)
- 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 as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While on the downwind leg of the traffic pattern, the flight instructor was unable to fully extend the landing gear. The landing gear appeared to be stuck in a transitional position, which the flight instructor attempted to resolve by moving the gear selector back to the gear-up position; however, she observed no movement. After about 1.5 hours of troubleshooting the landing gear, the flight instructor decided to land with the gear partially extended. The airplane touched down with the nose gear locked and the pilot was unable to attain directional control. The airplane veered off the runway, coming to rest in the grass. Examination of the hydraulic system revealed that the left main landing gear hydraulic actuator barrel was fractured adjacent to the end cap. A fracture at the retainer clip groove exhibited striations consistent with fatigue crack propagation, and other fractures through the barrel exhibited signatures of overstress failure. It is likely that, once the fatigue crack grew to a significant depth, the housing cracked further from overstress and hydraulic fluid leaked out of the system, preventing the landing gear from extending properly. The airplane manufacturer had previously issued instructions for modification of some landing gear hydraulic actuators installed on the accident airplane make and model, and an FAA airworthiness directive (AD) was subsequently issued to mandate the modifications. The maintenance records showed that the AD was performed on the accident airplane.
This is at least the fourth known failure of this model of actuator that resulted in an accident. The location, size, and physical features of the cracks were consistent among the accidents.
Probable cause
A fatigue failure of the left main landing gear hydraulic actuator, which resulted in a loss of hydraulic fluid that prevented the pilot from lowering the landing gear to the fully extended position and maintaining directional control after landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR23LA213
- Event ID
- 20230605192308
- Case number
- WPR23LA213
- 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, 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: df03c0c0900036bdea8f0d24cc47010d736041e0abdbd1863f54d11384f23e0e; retrieved 2026-09-16T17:41:23.271Z.