WPR24LA122 · Cessna 180A
Cessna 180A · Accident: part(s) separation from aircraft during landing
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR24LA122
- 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 180A
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 180
- 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
- N5281D
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 66 years (built 1958)
- 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 · landing roll
- 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
- Part(s) separation from aircraft
- 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 structures
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported he was receiving flight instruction and was practicing landings in a tailwheel-equipped airplane. During a power-off approach, the throttle was set to idle and carburetor heat was applied. As the airplane approached short final, both pilots observed an increased sink rate and the flight instructor called for additional power. Although power was increased, the engine briefly hesitated before full power was requested again. The flight instructor adjusted pitch and power, which resulted in a firm touchdown with a minimal bounce. Upon touchdown, the left wheel and axle assembly separated from the left main landing gear leg. The landing gear leg struck the grass surface and the left main landing gear leg fractured at the fuselage end. The airplane slid on the left wing and right main landing gear wheel before it came to rest 180° opposite the direction of landing. Post accident examination of the airplane revealed that the left main landing gear axle assembly had separated; the landing gear attachment bolts remained in place, however, the attachment nuts were not present. Following a search of the accident area, the nuts were not recovered. Metallurgical examination of the fractured landing gear leg revealed features consistent with inboard bending overstress. Although the separation occurred after the wheel and axle assembly detached, the fracture surface exhibited a fatigue crack that had originated from a corrosion pit on the outboard surface of the leg which had been painted over. The corrosion pitting indicated that either the corrosion was not observed or ignored during the last overhaul or landing gear exchange when the floats were removed and the airplane wheels reinstalled. Improper maintenance of the attachment bolts during assembly on the left main landing gear axle likely left them loosely secure, which produced inadequate thread engagement; unable to sustain the stress of landing loads, the bolts failed, which caused the wheel assembly to separate during the landing roll.
Probable cause
Maintenance personnel's improper installation of the left main landing gear wheel assembly, which resulted in a loss of torque and subsequent separation of the wheel and axle assembly from the main landing gear leg during landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR24LA122
- Event ID
- 20240409194062
- Case number
- WPR24LA122
- 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: 55ff8bf939383436b2ad036f381e9846432529577ca1be0a76ac608e7b2b3a06; retrieved 2026-09-16T18:39:35.865Z.