Lynden Air Cargo Lockheed 382G accident
Lockheed 382G · Accident: aircraft structural failure en route
From Bethel Airport (BET) to Elmendorf Air Force Base (EDF)
Event
- NTSB case
- DCA16LA096
- 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
- Airline
- 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
Lockheed 382G
- Aircraft type
- Lockheed 382
- 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
- N401LC
- Operator
- Lynden Air Cargo
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Bethel Airport (BET), Bethel, AKTo Elmendorf Air Force Base (EDF), Anchorage, AK
- Aircraft age
- About 41 years (built 1975)
- 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 121: Air Carrier
- 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
- 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
- Aircraft structural 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft structures
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane suffered a rupture in the forward pressure bulkhead canted web causing a rapid depressurization during flight. The crew declared an emergency and diverted to the nearest airport where they landed safely. The accident airplane was manufactured in 1975 and had accumulated 35,421 flight cycles.
Examination of the fractured canted web revealed multiple fatigue cracks that initiated at the forward and aft surfaces of the web adjacent to a vertical line of rivets at the airplane centerline. The fatigue cracking from the aft face propagated through 85%-90% of the thickness and the fatigue cracking from the forward face propagated through the remaining thickness. The fatigue cracking was present near 21 consecutive rivet holes. Dark staining determined to be aluminum oxide was noted on the mating fracture faces in areas that contained the larger fatigue cracks indicating the larger fatigue cracks were present for some time prior to the accident flight. The aluminum oxide contained trace evidence of chlorine. Chlorides are known contaminants that promote corrosion in aluminum alloys. The investigation did not determine the source of the chlorine contamination. Detailed examination of the fatigue crack initiation sites revealed the presence of isolated areas that contained evidence of intergranular cracking. Intergranular cracking and chlorine contamination typically are associated with stress corrosion cracking in aluminum alloys. There were no material discrepancies noted on the fractured web. Areas between fatigue cracks and at the upper and lower ends were due to overstress separation. A fatigue crack striation study indicated that the cracks likely initiated about 5,000 cycles prior to the accident flight.
The manufacturer released a Service Bulletin based on the findings of the investigation to provide more detailed instructions and updated intervals to inspect for cracking of the forward pressure bulkhead canted web.
Probable cause
The fatigue failure of the forward pressure bulkhead canted web that originated from stress corrosion cracking areas. Contributing to the failure were inspection procedures and intervals inadequate to identify the crack.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DCA16LA096
- Event ID
- 20160222X93713
- Case number
- DCA16LA096
- 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: d9f8e9ac49c6468af1aff8e8893f15532f672126ae022a5623e253de8b77cefd; retrieved 2026-09-16T03:10:21.633Z.