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Atlas / NTSB / CEN22LA004

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event CEN22LA004

2021-10-04 Watkins, Colorado, United States Airport · CFO Minor 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Registry · N3027B

FAA Aircraft Registry record.

Make / Model

CESSNA 195B

Year of manufacture

1952 · 69 years old at event

TCDS

A-790 · TEXTRON AVIATION INC

Engine

JACOBS R-755A2 (300 hp)

Seats / Engines

5 seats · 1 engine

Last airworthiness date

20160303

ADS-B equipped

Yes — Mode-S A32A0F

Registrant of record

LACEY WILLIAM F

Source: FAA Aircraft Registry (releasable master file).

Aircraft involved

Probable cause & findings

The separation of the left main landing gear spring during landing roll due to a preexisting fatigue crack.

Factual narrative

The pilot reported he was landing from a personal flight in his tailwheel-equipped airplane when it suddenly swerved to the right shortly after the tailwheel contacted the runway surface during the landing roll. The pilot applied left rudder and brake to regain directional control, but the airplane veered off the right side of the runway into a level grass area. The left main landing gear (MLG) spring fractured where the spring entered the fuselage, which resulted in the airplane coming to rest on the lower left fuselage in a left wing down attitude. The left wing, left aileron, and the fuselage sustained substantial damage. Postaccident examination of the left MLG spring revealed a preexisting fatigue crack that initiated from the upper forward edge of the spring adjacent to the fuselage. The fatigue crack likely reduced the overall strength of the landing gear spring which resulted in its separation during the landing roll. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database Retrieved: 2026-02-12

NTSB Findings

Hierarchical cause / factor breakdown from the FAA bulk avdata database. Each finding tagged C (Cause) or F (Factor).

  • Aircraft-Aircraft systems-Landing gear system-Main landing gear-Failure
  • Aircraft-Aircraft systems-Landing gear system-Main landing gear-Fatigue/wear/corrosion

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_2021_CEN22LA004.txt. Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb. Full investigation docket on data.ntsb.gov ↗.

Related research

What the literature says.

Academic papers and agency reports matching this event's aircraft type. Sourced from NASA NTRS, NTSB Safety Studies, FAA CAMI, AOPA Air Safety Institute, Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons, arXiv, and the Semantic Scholar academic graph.

Browse the full corpus — academia portal ↗