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ERA25LA168

2025-04-04 · Vero Beach, Florida, United States · None · 1 aircraft · Status: Completed

Airport VRB

Current FAA registration · N333SE

Make / Model
PIPER PA-34-200
Year of manufacture
1973 · 52 years old at event
Engine
LYCOMING I0360 SER (180 hp)
Seats / Engines
7 seats · 2 engines
Last airworthiness date
19730116
ADS-B equipped
Yes — Mode-S A3A289

Source: FAA Aircraft Registry (releasable master file).

Aircraft involved

Probable cause & findings

Separation of the lower nose landing gear down lock link bolt, which resulted in a collapse of the nose landing gear during landing.

Factual narrative

The student and flight instructor of the multi-engine airplane departed for a training flight and initially planned to practice touch-and-go landings in the airport traffic pattern. After performing a go-around during the initial landing attempt, the flight instructor described that the student configured the airplane for landing and verified that the landing gear were extended. About 2 seconds after the airplane touched down on the runway normally, the nose landing gear collapsed. The airplane came to rest on the runway and the lower forward fuselage was substantially damaged. Postaccident examination of the landing gear revealed that the lower bolt, which secured the nose landing gear down lock link to the lower drag link, was missing. The bolt was not found after the accident. Without this bolt, the nose landing gear could not remain in a locked position after it was extended. Given this information, it is likely that the bolt separated during the flight, which resulted in the nose landing gear collapse during the subsequent landing. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database Retrieved: 2026-02-12

NTSB Findings

FAA avdata. C = Cause, F = Factor.

  • — Aircraft-Aircraft systems-Landing gear system-Gear extension and retract sys-Failure

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_2025_ERA25LA168.txt. Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb. Full investigation docket on data.ntsb.gov ↗.

Related research

Matched on aircraft type or causal vocabulary (go-around). All research papers