NYC87FA121 · Cessna 402C
Cessna 402C · Accident: partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure) during initial climb
From Cape Cod Gateway Airport (HYA) to Nantucket Memorial Airport (ACK)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC87FA121
- 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 402C
- 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
- N87PB
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Cape Cod Gateway Airport (HYA)To Nantucket Memorial Airport (ACK), Nantucket, MA
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Partial 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Emergency procedure, improper
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Hyannis, MA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
SHORTLY AFTER THE INITIAL PWR REDUCTION DRG TKOF, THE PLT NOTED A PARTIAL LOSS OF PWR IN THE RGT ENG. HE SAID HE 'WENT TO FULL POWER ON BOTH ENGINES' & NOTED AN 'EXTREMELY HIGH' FUEL FLOW INDCN TO THE RGT ENG. HE SAID, 'THINKING THAT THE ENGINE WAS FLOODING, I PLACED THE BOOST PUMP SWITCH FROM HIGH TO OFF TO POSSIBLY ELIMINATE THE PROBLEM WITH NO RESULT. ITHEN PLACED THE PUMP BACK TO HIGH AND TRIED TO DECREASE THE FUEL FLOW BY LEANING THE MIXTURE. THIS ALSO DID NOT SEEM TO ELIMINATE THE PROBLEM.' WHILE TROUBLESHOOTING THE PRBLM, HE TURNED TO A DOWNWIND & STAYED IN THE TRAFFIC PATTERN, BUT COULD NOT MAINT ALT. SUBSEQUENTLY, A WHEELS-UP LNDG WAS MADE IN AN AREA OF SMALL TREES APRX 1/2 MI BFR REACHING RWY 24. AN EXAM OF THE RGT ENG REVEALED THE SPARK PLUGS WERE WET WITH FUEL & BLACK WITH SOOT. ALSO, ITS #5 FUEL NOZZLE HAD BEEN CROSS-THREADED & WAS KNOCKED OUT OF ITS HOLE DRG IMPACT. DRG AN INITIAL TEST, THE RGT FUEL PRESSURE SENSING SW DID NOT SENSE OPERG PRESSURE (OVR 6 PSI); THIS WOULD HAVE RESULTED IN A HI BOOST/FUEL FLOW COND. LATER, THE SW TESTED OK.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC87FA121
- Event ID
- 20001213X30799
- Case number
- NYC87FA121
- 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: 06df8603c9b772eef50b06fac75d7450d59a4b2400cd909dbc665360c0c69723; retrieved 2026-09-18T19:41:16.225Z.