MKC90FA020 · Cessna 402B
Cessna 402B · Accident: fire en route
From Bill & Hillary Clinton National Airport/Adams Field (LIT) to Springdale Municipal Airport (ASG)
Event
- NTSB case
- MKC90FA020
- 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
- 1 · 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
- N6382X
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Bill & Hillary Clinton National Airport/Adams Field (LIT), Little Rock, ARTo Springdale Municipal Airport (ASG), Springdale, AR
- 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 · climb to 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
- Fire
- 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
- Pole
- 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
- Fuel system › Leak
- Fuel system › Undetermined
- Wing › Fire
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PASSENGER SITTING IN THE COPILOT'S SEAT STATED THAT SHE SAW FIRE COMING FROM THE RIGHT WING AND ENGINE AREA. SHE STATED THAT SHE COULD SEE A BRIGHT 'GLOW' BENEATH THE SKIN OF THE WING. THE PILOT MADE A FORCED LANDING ON A FREEWAY AND THE AIRCRAFT STRUCK A LIGHT POLE ON THE HIGHWAY MEDIAN. HEAVY FIRE DAMAGE WAS FOUND IN THE AFT PORTION OF THE RIGHT ENGINE NACELLE & RIGHT FLAP ASSEMBLY. IN ADDITION, HEAVY FIRE AND SOOT WERE EVIDENT IN THE INTERIOR OF THE RIGHT WING ASSEMBLY.
Probable cause
A LEAK IN THE AIRCRAFT'S FUEL SYSTEM WHICH RESULTED IN AN IN-FLIGHT FIRE. THE ORIGIN OF THE FUEL LEAK WAS NOT DETERMINED.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MKC90FA020
- Event ID
- 20001213X29667
- Case number
- MKC90FA020
- 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: dde04fe8f37b6defbf3e7dbd6bd8368af747cefdbf19c6d80026c186161c8441; retrieved 2026-09-18T14:07:44.409Z.