Royal Air Freight Cessna 402B accident
Cessna 402B · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) on approach
From Upper Cumberland Regional Airport (SRB) to Romeo State Airport (D98)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI92LA263
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Completed
- API-reported fatalities
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- Charter & commuter
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Cessna 402B
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 402
- Category
- Airplane
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- N7882Q
- Operator
- Royal Air Freight
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Upper Cumberland Regional Airport (SRB), Sparta, TNTo Romeo State Airport (D98), Romeo, MI
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- Approach · VFR pattern downwind
- First occurrenceThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Total loss of engine power (mechanical failure)
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Fluid, fuel › Pressure excessive
- Pilot in command › Airspeed(vyse), not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE TWIN ENGINE CARGO AIRPLANE WAS PREPARING TO ENTER A BASE LEG FOR LANDING WHEN THE LEFT ENGINE CEASED OPERATING. DURING THE TRANSITION TO SINGLE-ENGINE OPERATIONS, THE PILOT STATED THE AIRPLANE'S AIRSPEED WENT BELOW THE SINGLE ENGINE BEST RATE OF CLIMB AIRSPEED AND A DESCENT WAS ENTERED. THE PILOT STATED HE WAS NOT ABLE TO TURN ONTO BASE LEG BECAUSE WHEN HE ATTEMPTED TO DO SO THE AIRPLANE'S STALL WARNING SYSTEM WOULD ACTIVATE. THE PILOT STATED HE WAS NOT ABLE TO PITCH THE AIRPLANE'S ATTITUDE DOWN TO REGAIN AIRSPEED BECAUSE OF LOW ALTITUDE. THE PILOT ELECTED TO LAND IN A CORN FIELD. THE ON SCENE INVESTIGATION AND POST ACCIDENT TESTING REVEALED THE LEFT ENGINE'S FUEL PUMP WAS DEFECTIVE AND HAD FLOODED THE ENGINE.
Probable cause
EXCESSIVE FUEL SYSTEM PUMP PRESSURE AND CORRESPONDING EXCESSIVE FUEL PRESSURE AND THE PILOT NOT MAINTAINING THE BEST SINGLE ENGINE CLIMB SPEED.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI92LA263
- Event ID
- 20001211X15650
- Case number
- CHI92LA263
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (4)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1992-09-03.
- API snapshot SHA-256: fd662f65e3c02eab35756088dced50a7c450f2fe6f94cda3c124529c9101e1ed; retrieved 2026-09-18T18:44:10.722Z.