CEN24LA227 · Beech D55
Peterson Space Force Aero Club Beech D55 · Accident: system/component malfunction/failure (non-power) during landing
From City of Colorado Springs Municipal Airport (COS) to City of Colorado Springs Municipal Airport (COS)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN24LA227
- 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
Beech D55
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 55
- 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
- N321N
- Operator
- Peterson Space Force Aero Club
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From City of Colorado Springs Municipal Airport (COS), Colorado Springs, COTo City of Colorado Springs Municipal Airport (COS), Colorado Springs, CO
- Aircraft age
- About 56 years (built 1968)
- 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
- 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
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The flight instructor and the pilot-receiving-instruction were conducting a nighttime currency/proficiency flight when, after an uneventful landing flare and touchdown, the airplane began to vibrate and veer right during the landing roll. The pilot-receiving-instruction, who was the pilot flying during the landing, released toe brake input but the vibration increased as the airplane continued to veer right. Ultimately, the right main landing gear collapsed, and the airplane came to rest upright in the grass adjacent to the runway. The right wing main spar was substantially damaged when the right wing struck the ground after the landing gear collapsed.
Examination of the right main landing gear tire and its tube revealed a sidewall puncture. The puncture was made by an unknown small, sharp object, which left a clean cut on the tube sidewall that measured about 0.25-inch long with the tube deflated, and 0.375-inch long when the tube was reinflated. During the landing roll, it is likely that the tube lost enough pressure that it began to move around the wheel rim until the valve stem severed and there was total loss of remaining tire pressure. The increasing vibration felt by the pilots during landing roll is consistent with a progressive loss of tire pressure, and the increased drag from the deflated right tire would explain airplane’s tendency to veer right. The right main landing gear likely collapsed when the over-center down lock assembly disengaged due to an excessive sideload during the right swerve.
Probable cause
The deflated right main landing gear tire due to a sidewall puncture made by an unknown object, which led to the pilot’s loss of directional control and the landing gear collapse during landing roll.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN24LA227
- Event ID
- 20240617194486
- Case number
- CEN24LA227
- 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: local date, investigation status, coordinates, cause areas. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2024-06-11.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 8943bf5e712a2065584dc07a7f706b67862385be893bb1390eeb1a0c850fccd4; retrieved 2026-09-16T18:54:58.412Z.