Accident
During the landing roll, the left main landing gear separated from the aircraft.
Metallurgical Examination
A post-accident metallurgical examination determined that the fracture resulted from fatigue cracks. These cracks originated in the chamfer areas at two bolt hole locations on the inboard side of the strut. The propagation time for the fatigue crack regions could not be established, but most of the brown region fractured in a single event. Because the crack was present for very few flight cycles, a visual inspection of the lower surfaces of the spring strut would have needed to occur immediately before the accident flight to detect it, and even then, visibility would have been poor. The small fatigue cracks at the origin areas were concealed by washers and were not visually detectable.
Safety Recommendations
The Safety Board had previously issued recommendations regarding this issue. The Federal Aviation Administration reported that the visual inspections specified in maintenance manuals were adequate to detect cracks in the main landing gear struts and that additional airworthiness action was not warranted. On March 25, 2002, the NTSB responded, stating that it continued to believe that visual inspection alone would not detect cracks in the Cessna main landing gear spring struts. However, the Safety Board acknowledged that statistical evidence did not warrant issuance of airworthiness directives at that time as called for in its recommendation. The safety recommendation was subsequently classified as "Closed-Reconsidered."