SEA01LA052 · Cessna 402B
Cessna 402B · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water on approach
From Billings Logan International Airport (BIL) to Billings Logan International Airport (BIL)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA01LA052
- 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
- Unknown
- 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
- General aviation
- 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
- N69316
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Billings Logan International Airport (BIL), Billings, MTTo Billings Logan International Airport (BIL)
- 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 91: General Aviation
- 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 go-around
- 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 collision with terrain/water
- 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 › Airspeed(vyse), not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During a simulated single-engine out go-around, the pilot reported that he applied full power to the left engine (right engine had been set at zero thrust) and maintained "blue line" (118 MPH- IAS). The descent rate was arrested and the flaps then the landing gear were retracted. The pilot reported that at this point he was flying by visual cues and noted that the aircraft altitude was descending below the minimum descent altitude, and the aircraft felt "mushy." The pilot crossed checked the flight instruments and noted that the aircraft was not climbing and continuing to descend. The pilot stated that, he lowered the nose giving up altitude for airspeed, but realized that the airspeed was at the minimum controllable airspeed or a little above. The pilot immediately applied full power to the right engine, however the aircraft continued to settle and contacted the runway in a wings level and slightly nose high attitude. The check pilot onboard reported that full power was on the left engine, and nearly or full power was on the right engine at the time of impact. Both pilots felt that the main landing gear was retracted, however the nose gear might not have been fully retracted.
Probable cause
Best rate-of-climb single-engine speed was not maintained. Delayed remedial action was a factor.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA01LA052
- Event ID
- 20010222X00501
- Case number
- SEA01LA052
- 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: 77a1f4ef510f57207d0ef8fff42c4bb07ed1dfb2051587bbc986ac4796e219f0; retrieved 2026-09-22T12:09:03.120Z.