Tuesday, June 21, 2022

Cessna T210F Turbo Centurion, N534F: Incident occurred June 20, 2022 at Accomack County Airport (KMFV), Melfa, Virginia

Federal Aviation Administration / Flight Standards District Office; Richmond, Virginia

Aircraft landed gear up. 


Date: 20-JUN-22
Time: 18:25:00Z
Regis#: N534F
Aircraft Make: CESSNA
Aircraft Model: T210F
Event Type: INCIDENT
Highest Injury: NONE
Aircraft Missing: No
Damage: UNKNOWN
Activity: PERSONAL
Flight Phase: LANDING (LDG)
Operation: 91
City: MELFA
State: VIRGINIA




MELFA, Virginia - There were some tense moments at an Accomack County airport late Monday afternoon.

Virginia State Police said that a Cessna T210F Turbo Centurion had taken a 10-minute flight from Tangier Island to the airport in Melfa when its landing gear failed to deploy properly and collapsed when the plane touched down on the runway. The hull of the plane and the propeller were damaged as the plane skidded to a stop.

The pilot, 45-year-old Harry Leiser of Rome, Pennsylvania, was unaware there was a problem until the landing gear collapsed. 

Leiser was not injured, according to police. There was no fuel leak and the only damage was to the aircraft, police said. 

12 comments:

  1. Watch or do a 210 gear swing. Main gear collapse makes me go "hmmm." Remember that the green light illuminates only at the end of the travel.

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    1. Although switches can certainly fail, in either closed or open circuit.

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    2. And you can look out and confirm that the main gear is down and unable to collapse and check the mirror for the nose gear

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    3. In the older strut version, I was trained to stow the tow bar within reach behind the pilot seat, and if the gear was not fully extended, you would open the door, extend the tow bar around the landing gear leg, and pull up/forward until it locked. Fortunately, I never had to do that.

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  2. So easy for pilots to get complacent and not visually check the gear. The 210 unfortunately only has a single gear down light with all three of the gear’s micro switches wired in series. These micro switches also can fail in the closed position. A friend totaled his 210 a few years back - He put the gear lever down, got a green light, but didn’t visually check - and the gear hadn’t fully deployed. FSDO even said, ‘Yup. Two of the three gear down switches had failed “closed”’ after they inspected the wreckage.

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  3. How did the nose gear doors get closed if the gear collapsed?

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  4. No, really … the gear collapsed! The gear collapsed so hard that it bounced the gear switch back to the up position.

    /s

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  5. Gear collapsed my ass... he just forgot to deploy it. And a precious RG plane probably totalled since the parts for such a Cessna are very expensive. The front gear doors were 20k last time I checked and only one company makes them. Refurbished they go for 10-15k

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    1. We total in big round numbers, "There are over 200,000 general aviation aircraft and about 500,000 GA pilots in the U.S. generating $39 billion in direct economic output and 7.6 million jobs according to the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association." Yet also told, low volume parts demand from GA means light aircraft parts manufacturing is a low volume, labor-intensive, time consuming process that results in high prices.

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    2. Parts are expensive for all aircraft.

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    3. Hoooold it, Bobbalooie! Though you might have a valid point there, it's necessary to await some official findings from the NTSB/FAA/Insurance Industry before such inputs. The -210 does have a history of gear anomalies, so these factors should be ruled out prior to focusing on pilot errors.

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  6. I almost bought this airplane but was to late. I have been flying these for over 50 years. The pilot just did not put the gear down.You can see this by the picture there was no gear failure as they are still in the retracted position.

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