N5057SPiper PA-28R-200 · 1970

On November 14, 2021, about 1423 Pacific standard time, a Piper PA-28R-200 airplane, N5057S, was substantially damaged when it was involved in an accident at the Boulder City Municipal Airport (BVU), Boulder City, Nevada. The pilot and passenger were not injured. The airplane was operated as a Title 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 91 personal flight.

The pilot reported that after receiving the airplane from the paint shop, he conducted two takeoffs and landings in the local traffic pattern to check that the landing gear retracted and extended properly. Once the maintenance check flight was completed, he and his passenger departed on the accident flight to BVU. During the approach to BVU, the right main landing gear would not extend. The pilot cycled the landing gear and made several abrupt, high-G maneuvers to try and free the right main landing gear from its retracted position. Despite his actions, the right main landing gear would not extend. The pilot decided to land with the left main landing gear and the nose landing gear extended. As the airplane slowed during the landing roll, the right wing dropped to the runway surface and the airplane veered off the right side of the runway. The airplane came to rest over a small ditch and sustained substantial damage to the aft fuselage and right wing.

The pilot reported that the right main landing gear was retracted, and the landing gear door was opened about 1 to 2 inches. He said that he positioned himself in the ditch below the landing gear and pulled hard on the door to extend the gear. After a couple of attempts, the landing gear suddenly dropped down into place.

During a postaccident examination, the airplane was lifted up on jacks and the airplane’s landing gear was examined. The emergency gear extension functioned normally, and both the nose landing gear and main gear fell into the down and locked position. Mechanical damage was found on the right main landing gear wheel well near the right gear door rod-end bolt travel area. The mechanical damage was consistent with the threaded end portion of the bolt. The right main landing gear door rod-end bolt had about 4 additional threads than the bolt used on the left main landing gear. The bolt was removed, and its length was 1-4/25 inch, which was about 1/8 inch longer than the correctly installed bolt, which measured 1-1/32 inch.

Figure 1-Landing gear linkage and wheel well damage.

The paint shop reported that the gear doors were never removed from the landing gear structure during the painting process. They reported that on this type of aircraft they do not remove the gear doors.