Regional Express Cessna 402B accident
Cessna 402B · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Salt Lake City International Airport (SLC) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA91LA014
- 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
- N1683T
- Operator
- Regional Express
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Salt Lake City International Airport (SLC), Salt Lake City, UTTo not recorded
- 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
- En route · cruise
- 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
- In flight encounter with weather
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Fuel exhaustion
- 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
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, poor
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
DURING A CARGO FLIGHT, THE AIRPLANE ENCOUNTERED STRONG HEAD WINDS AND ICING CONDITIONS. THE PILOT STATED THAT HE HAD TO APPLY ADDITIONAL POWER IN ORDER TO MAINTAIN ALTITUDE. DURING THE DESCENT TO THE AIRPORT, THE PILOT NOTIFIED ATC THAT HE WAS DECLARING AN EMERGENCY AND REPORTED MINIMUM FUEL. SHORTLY THERE AFTER, THE ENGINES QUIT. THE PILOT INITIATED A FORCED LANDING IN A FIELD WHERE DURING THE LANDING ROLL, THE LEFT MAIN GEAR COLAPSED. POST CRASH INSPECTION OF THE AIRPLANE REVEALED THAT THE FUEL TANKS WERE NEAR EXHAUSTED OF FUEL.
Probable cause
THE LOSS OF ENGINE POWER DUE TO A BURNED PISTON RESULTING FROM ARCING AND PARTIAL FAILURE OF THE LEFT MAGNETO BECAUSE OF IMPROPER OVERHAUL, THE CONTAMINATION OF THE RIGHT MAGNETO AND IMPROPER ADJUSTMENT OF THE FUEL SYSTEM AT THE LAST MAJOR ENGINE OVERHAUL; POOR INFLIGHT PLANNING BY THE PILOT INS SELECTING THE WRONG RUNWAY; AND THE PREMATURE EXTENSION OF THE FLAPS AND LADNING GEAR CAUSING THE AIRCRAFT TO UNDERSHOOT THE RUNWAY.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA91LA014
- Event ID
- 20001212X24701
- Case number
- SEA91LA014
- 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: investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 38c8fe340f14a97b679895d703b8a6bdc85b82a50ce72d3c2558670d8830af3b; retrieved 2026-09-18T18:58:35.671Z.