Beechcraft 1900D N247GL

Summary

On 3 December 2011 at about 15:30 local time, a Beechcraft 1900D registered N247GL, operated by Great Lakes Aviation Ltd, was involved in an incident near Denver International Airport, Colorado, United States. The number of people on board was not recorded. The aircraft was slightly damaged. The NTSB has published a probable cause for this accident; it is quoted in full below.

Date

3 December 2011 at 15:30

Classification

Incident

Location

Denver International Airport, Colorado, United States

Nearest airport

Denver International Airport (KDEN)

Coordinates

39.8494, -104.7007

Aircraft

Beechcraft 1900D

Registration

N247GL

Category

Airplane

Engines

2

Operator

Great Lakes Aviation Ltd

Operating rule

Part 121: Air Carrier

Phase of flight

Not recorded

Route

Montrose → Denver

Aircraft damage

Minor

NTSB number

ENG12IA013

Injuries not recorded.

A failure of the nose landing gear end cap due to fatigue. Contributing to the failure were the ineffective inspection and the unknown effect of grain direction on fatigue life.

Quoted verbatim from the NTSB record. This site does not paraphrase or interpret it.

Read the full NTSB narrative

During a post flight inspection the pilot discovered a hydraulic leak on the nose landing gear that was emanating from a crack in the nose landing gear end cap. The end cap was examined and found to have failed in fatigue that initiated from multiple origins at an internal diameter. The fatigue had propagated significantly into the wall thickness of the end cap and through the thickness at one location. The striation count revealed that the fatigue crack had initiated and been growing in the end cap for at least 14,898 cycles. The end cap had been inspected using an ultrasonic method recommended by the manufacturer 485 cycles prior to the incident. The crack was present at the time of the inspection which indicated that the inspection method was ineffective in detecting the crack. The timing of the end cap inspection was in compliance with the manufacturer’s recommendation. Examination of the microstructure of the material revealed that the longitudinal grain direction was oriented parallel to the shuttle valve bore in the end cap. Resistance to fatigue can be improved by aligning the principle tension stresses in the end cap with the longitudinal grain direction. It is probable that the manufacturer had determined that the grain direction was a contributing factor to fatigue failure in the end cap and revised the end cap drawing to require a grain direction along the longitudinal axis of the end cap in February 2010. No engineering data to support the drawing revision was made available.

Quoted verbatim from the NTSB record.