Caribbean Express Cessna C-402 incident
Cessna C-402 · Incident: airframe, component or system failure during initial climb
From Miami International Airport (MIA) to Fort Lauderdale Hollywood International Airport (FLL)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA85IA074
- 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
- Incident
- 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 C-402
- Aircraft type
- Cessna C-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
- N60SA
- Operator
- Caribbean Express
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Miami International Airport (MIA), Miami, FLTo Fort Lauderdale Hollywood International Airport (FLL), FT LAUDERDALE, FL
- 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Minor
Cause areas
- Door, landing gear › Worn
- Landing gear, main gear attachment › Failure, total
- Landing gear, normal retraction/extension assembly › Failure, partial
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
ON 1/7/85 AT ABOUT 0750 EST, N60SA, A CESSNA 402 LANDED LEFTMAIN GEAR COLLAPSED, ON A COMMUTER AIR TAXI, POSITIONING FLIGHT AT MAIMI, FL. VMC PREVAILED AT THE TIME AN IFR FLIGHT PLAN WAS FILED. THE AIRCRAFT RECEIVED MINOR DAMAGE AND THE PILOT, THE SOLE OCCUPANTPANT, REPORTED NO INJURIES. THE FLIGHT ORIGINATED AT MIAMI, FL, AT 0745 EST ON 1/7/85. THE PILOT STATED THAT AFTER TAKEOFF THE NOSE GEAR AND THE RIGHT MAIN GEAR RETRACTED NORMALLY. THE LEFT MAIN GEAR DID NOT RETRACT AND THE PILOT STATED HE HEARD METALIC GRINDING NOISES. THE PILOT CONTINED TO RECYCLE THE GEAR AND ATTEMPTED TO LOWER THE GEAR BY EMERGENCY EXTENSION TO NO AVAIL. HE LANDED ON RUNWAY 30 AT MIAMI INT'L. THE LEFT MAIN GEAR COLLAPSED.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA85IA074
- Event ID
- 20001214X35570
- Case number
- MIA85IA074
- 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: 0d7e6dbae61b11948ba3fb0f09384f85b3b29e8fae315bdd9701cc7edc91a861; retrieved 2026-09-18T20:32:55.081Z.