Nantucket Shuttle Cessna 402C incident
Cessna 402C · Incident: landing gear not configured
From Nantucket Memorial Airport (ACK) to Cape Cod Gateway Airport (HYA)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA10IA378
- 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
- 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
- N26150
- Operator
- Nantucket Shuttle
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Nantucket Memorial Airport (ACK), Nantucket, MATo Cape Cod Gateway Airport (HYA), Hyannis, MA
- 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 · flare/touchdown
- Defining eventThe 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
- Landing gear not configured
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft systems
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot/owner/operator said that he was on final approach as he slowed the airplane and incrementally increased the flap settings. He lowered the landing gear about the same time that he deployed the first 15 degrees of flaps, but made no mention of the landing gear lights having been illuminated. When the airplane was over the runway threshold, he added the last of the flaps, encountered turbulence, bounced, and the airplane then landed with the gear up and slid to a stop. Passengers in the airplane said that the airplane skidded to a stop after ground contact and did not bounce. Witnesses stated that the landing gear was retracted during the entire approach and landing. The airplane was placed on jacks and the landing gear was extended and retracted, with no deficiencies noted. Examination revealed that the main landing gear showed no scratches, scrapes, or any other evidence of abnormal contact with the runway. The pilot then suggested that he must have struck the landing gear handle with his knee when the airplane bounced, which retracted the gear before the second touchdown. Contrary to specific instructions from the investigative team, the pilot removed the landing gear switch from the airplane without supervision or government oversight. Subsequent examination of the switch revealed that the detent mechanism of the switch was severely worn, and that the wear and tool marks were consistent with the switch having been gripped by a tool, and smeared back and forth over the detent, rather than lifted as designed. Further, the tool marks were evident in areas that would normally be covered by the landing gear switch handle when installed, and also having slipped while smearing the switch over the detent.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to extend the landing gear prior to landing flare and touchdown.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA10IA378
- Event ID
- 20100727X42310
- Case number
- ERA10IA378
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
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: 860432d87db6811e89dfc0755fb6951b228324c7f65cf5910bf22ee778de7b2d; retrieved 2026-09-15T14:45:50.142Z.