Arctic Circle Air Cessna 402C accident
Cessna 402C · Accident: airframe, component or system failure during landing
From Anchorage, AK to Merle K (Mudhole) Smith Airport (CDV)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC07LA021
- 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
- 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
- N402ET
- Operator
- Arctic Circle Air
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Anchorage, AKTo Merle K (Mudhole) Smith Airport (CDV), Cordova, 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 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
- Landing · landing roll
- 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
- Landing gear, main gear strut › Disconnected
- Miscellaneous, bolt/nut/fastener/clamp/spring › Disengaged
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 landing the retractable gear airplane on a hard surfaced runway at the conclusion of an air taxi cargo flight. During the landing roll, the pilot reported that the airplane veered to the right, and he was unable to maintain directional control. The right main landing gear subsequently collapsed, resulting in substantial damage to the right wing spar. Inspection by the NTSB investigator-in-charge and company maintenance personnel, disclosed that the right main landing gear scissor link/strut became disconnected, which allowed the right main wheel assembly to turn sideways and overload the gear leg. Examination of the linkage revealed that the bolt securing the scissors/linkage had pulled through the washer adjacent to the scissor bushing opening, and ultimately through the bushing, disconnecting the linkage. The manufacturer of the airplane issued Service Letter ME-83-37, dated November 23, 1983, that recommended the original equipment outer main landing gear scissors link washers be replaced with larger, more robust washers for "...improved service life and main landing gear alignment retention." The operator had not complied with the nonmandatory service letter, and the airplane was operated with the smaller washers.
Probable cause
The failure of the right main landing gear linkage during the landing roll, which resulted in a loss of directional control and the collapse of the right main landing gear. A factor associated with the accident was the failure of company maintenance personnel to comply with a maintenance service letter issued by the airplane manufacturer.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC07LA021
- Event ID
- 20070308X00264
- Case number
- ANC07LA021
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (5)
- 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: 6643c2fa90e8c7bccba2ca62dbaef0232ce090f940f996c13a8771ee92e3fd63; retrieved 2026-09-18T14:46:48.842Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N402ET; the operator shown is the name the NTSB records it doing business as.