Gear collapse issue

[N252MK]

Partner was landing at Spokane Felts field yesterday when suddenly the left main gear collapsed. Had green gear down indicator. No crosswind or dude load to speak of. A bunch of sheet metal damage to flap, tail, beacon but no prop strike. Looks like without strap bracing the gear will collapse of weight is put on it. Nothing looks broken or bent to explain the collapse. We’ll have an IA look at it today but anything we should particularly look for?

 

Photos to follow.

 

 

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[N252MK]

Trying to add damage photos.


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[N252MK]

Should be no side load on gear while landing.


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[Mooneymite]

2 hours ago, N252MK said:

 

Partner was landing at Spokane Felts field yesterday when suddenly the left main gear collapsed. Had green gear down indicator. No crosswind or dude load to speak of. A bunch of sheet metal damage to flap, tail, beacon but no prop strike. Looks like without strap bracing the gear will collapse of weight is put on it. Nothing looks broken or bent to explain the collapse. We’ll have an IA look at it today but anything we should particularly look for?

Just guessing you will find a bent push rod under the belly skin.  Why it bent is another question, but I'm guessing the gear preload was not correct.

Glad there was no injury and no further damage.

[carusoam]

Well said Gus!

+1 for the logic…

Mooney gear doesn’t have much of a history of failure… when all things are adjusted properly…

There are special tools to set the gear up… and a fair amount of knowledge/practice to do it reliably well…

Somebody reported a broken gear tube on a Long Body recently…. A result of the gear not being set up properly…

Have your mechanic visit the maintenance manuals for setting the pre-load… and be on the look out for tubes that are bent or broken…

 

Often, the gear tools are for sale around here…

PP thoughts only, not a mechanic…

Best regards,

-a-

[N252MK]

Partner was landing at Spokane Felts field yesterday when suddenly the left main gear collapsed. Had green gear down indicator. No crosswind or dude load to speak of. A bunch of sheet metal damage to flap, tail, beacon but no prop strike. Looks like without strap bracing the gear will collapse of weight is put on it. Nothing looks broken or bent to explain the collapse. We’ll have an IA look at it today but anything we should particularly look for?
 
Photos to follow.
 
 
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UPDATE

You guys were right. Bent push rod tube and some sort of bracket. I know our maintenance shop that does our annuals knows about adjusting the tension and has the proper equipment so who knows what happened.

The plane did have an off airport landing in 2006 with a previous owner and the gear was likely down when they put it in a field as the left main and nose gear assemblies were replaced. It turns out there were a few significant errors in the repairs that were discovered on a subsequent annual we did a year ago. Who knows if that had any relevance to the gear failure?

At any rate we need a left flap. Any suggestions as to a good place to source one that we could tell the mechanic who’ll be doing the repairs?

Thanks!


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[KSMooniac]

It isn't difficult to bend/buckle those retract rods when doing a gear swing in the hangar... if the plane isn't jacked high enough, or something gets in the way of the gear motion to jam the wheel, the retract rod will buckle.  (I wish I did not know that from experience!)  At least it is an easy fix if that is the only problem, and maybe that was an intentional design feature by Al?  You get a tell-tale failure that doesn't easily propagate into more difficult or expensive components.

I see flaps on ebay from time to time, and I expect salvage yards have an assortment to choose from.  It shouldn't be difficult to find one, but shipping will be awful.

[carusoam]

For pre-flown parts…

@Alan Fox

@Jerry Pressley

@SheryLoewen

For new parts ask your favorite MSC… if you don’t have a favorite MSC… Dan at Lasar is good.

Best regards,

-a-