ANC04LA011 · Cessna 402
Arctic Air Service Cessna 402 · Accident: airframe, component or system failure on approach
From Nulato Airport (NUL) to Edward G. Pitka Sr Airport (PAGA)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC04LA011
- 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 402
- 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
- N402ET
- Operator
- Arctic Air Service
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Nulato Airport (NUL), Nulato, AKTo Edward G. Pitka Sr Airport (PAGA), Galena, AK
- 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
- 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
- Hydraulic system, actuator › Contamination, water
- Hydraulic system, actuator › Frozen
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airline transport certificated pilot was preparing to land a multiengine, retractable gear airplane, and as he lowered the landing gear, he did not receive a cockpit indication that the right main landing gear was extended. The pilot performed the emergency gear extension procedures, including the use of the emergency blow-down system, but the right main gear failed to extend. The pilot then landed with the left main landing gear and nose gear extended, and during the landing roll, shutdown the right engine. As the airplane slowed, the right wing and fuselage contacted the runway surface. A postaccident examination of the airplane revealed scraping/scuffing damage to the underside of the right wing and aileron. The right main landing gear strut was fully compressed. The gear extension and retraction components appeared to be undamaged. The operator's maintenance personnel reported that proposed repairs to the airplane included removal and replacement of the right wingtip, aileron and flap, and patching of fuselage skin. An FAA inspector reported that during further examination of the landing gear, the right gear hydraulic actuator was found contaminated with water. The temperature at the accident location was -2 degrees F. The FAA inspector indicated the actuator was probably frozen.
Probable cause
Water contamination and freezing of the landing gear actuator that prevented the extension of the right main landing gear, resulting in a gear-up landing. Factors contributing to the accident were freezing temperatures at the accident location, and inadequate maintenance/servicing of the landing gear system by company maintenance personnel.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC04LA011
- Event ID
- 20031203X01983
- Case number
- ANC04LA011
- 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, coordinates. 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: 4f2ba355f6bdadf7d9eee713fa7a24283122804fbdd0b69a7f53006c0a6322a0; retrieved 2026-09-22T08:10:34.874Z.