FTW03LA075 · Cessna 401
International Air Services Cessna 401 · Accident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From Hermanos Serdán International Airport (PBC) to McAllen Miller International Airport (MFE)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW03LA075
- 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 401
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 401
- 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
- N968JW
- Operator
- International Air Services
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Hermanos Serdán International Airport (PBC), PueblaTo McAllen Miller International Airport (MFE), Mc Allen, TX
- 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
- 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
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While en-route at night, the airplane experienced a partial loss of electrical power. The pilot attempted to electrically extend the landing gear; however, the landing gear did not extend. While on a right downwind for runway, he manually extended the landing gear, but did not receive three green annunciator lights confirming the landing gear was extended and locked. Without radio communications, the pilot was cleared to land via the air traffic control "steady green" light gun signal. During the landing roll, the left main landing gear collapsed, the airplane exited the runway and struck a runway sign. The airplane spun 180-degrees and came to rest upright. The reason for the loss of electrical power was not determined.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to manually extend the landing gear to the full down and locked position. A contributing faction was a loss of electrical power, which resulted in the failure of the landing gear to extend.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW03LA075
- Event ID
- 20030109X00038
- Case number
- FTW03LA075
- 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: local date, investigation status, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2003-01-04.
- API snapshot SHA-256: cbf69f23b455f51775b4b72fa841eb39af96bb6b7682e23521e16b5a701231c1; retrieved 2026-09-22T09:43:17.612Z.