7 Sep 2012: SOCATA TBM 700 — Randell D. Vinson

7 Sep 2012: SOCATA TBM 700 (N850ZM) — Randell D. Vinson

No fatalities • Horseshoe Bay, TX, United States

Probable cause

The off-centered right main landing gear ball joint, which resulted in the right main landing gear collapsing during landing.

— NTSB Determination

Accident narrative

On September 7, 2012, at 1500 central daylight time, a Socata TBM 700, N850ZM, registered to the pilot, sustained substantial damage after its right main landing gear collapsed while landing on runway 17 at the Horseshoe Bay Resort Airport, Horseshoe Bay, Texas. The private pilot and his 2 passengers were not injured. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed and a flight plane was not filed. The flight was being conducted under the provisions of 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 91. The cross-country flight originated at 1230 from Abilene, Texas.After an uneventful cross-country flight, the pilot configured the airplane for landing and had cockpit indications that the landing gear was down and locked. Upon a normal landing, the right main landing gear collapsed and the airplane veered off the runway. Examination of the landing gear after the accident revealed that the right main landing gear actuator was separated from the actuator ball joint. No other anomalies were noted. Further inspection of the actuator rod and ball joint revealed that the ball joint appeared to be not centered and set in its normal position.

After several other events involving similar landing gear malfunctions, the manufacturer issued two Mandatory Service Bulletins (SB) in April, 2013. SB70-197 and SB70-206 outlined protocols for inspection of the pistons and rods of landing gear actuators and inspection of the ball joint centering of the landing gear actuators and ball joint mismatches. The FAA following by issuing AD 2014-06-06 in March, 2014, requiring compliance with the manufacturers SBs to inspect, repair or replace affected parts.

Contributing factors

  • cause Landing gear actuator — Failure

Conditions

Weather
VMC, wind 360/05kt, vis 10sm

Loading the flight search…

What you can do on Flight Finder

  • Search flights between any two airports with live fares.
  • By aircraft — pick a plane model (e.g. Boeing 787, Airbus A350) and see every route it flies from your origin.
  • Route map — click any airport worldwide to explore its destinations, or draw a radius to find nearby airports.
  • Global aviation safety — aviation accident database, 5,200+ records since 1980, with map and rankings by aircraft and operator.
  • NTSB safety feed — recent U.S. aviation accidents and incidents from the official NTSB CAROL database, updated daily.

Frequently asked questions

How do I search flights by aircraft type on FlightFinder?

Pick an aircraft model — Boeing 737, Airbus A320, A380, Boeing 787 Dreamliner and more — enter your origin airport, and FlightFinder shows every route that plane flies from there with live fares.

Which aircraft types can I filter by?

We support Boeing 737/747/757/767/777/787, the full Airbus A220/A319/A320/A321/A330/A340/A350/A380 family, Embraer E170/E175/E190/E195, Bombardier CRJ and Dash 8, and the ATR 42/72 turboprops.

Is FlightFinder free to use?

Search and schedules are free. Pro ($4.99/month, $39/year, or $99 one-time lifetime) unlocks the enriched flight card — on-time stats, CO₂ per passenger, amenities, live gate & weather — plus My Trips with push alerts.

Where does the route data come from?

Live schedules come from Amadeus, AeroDataBox and Travelpayouts. Observed routes (which aircraft actually flew a given city pair) are crowdsourced from adsb.lol ADS-B data under the Open Database License.