ERA20CA100 · Cessna 402 C
Hyannis Air Service Cessna 402 C · Accident: system/component malfunction/failure (non-power) during initial climb
From Cape Cod Gateway Airport (HYA) to Cape Cod Gateway Airport (HYA)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA20CA100
- 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 C
- 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
- N409BK
- Operator
- Hyannis Air Service Inc Dba
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Cape Cod Gateway Airport (HYA), Barnstable, MATo Cape Cod Gateway Airport (HYA), Barnstable, MA
- Aircraft age
- About 38 years (built 1982)
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- System/component malfunction/failure (non-power)
- 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
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the operator, during initial climb, the door warning light illuminated, and the crew hatch door opened. The door's forward hinge assembly was then torn from its fuselage mount point along with adjacent aircraft skin, which resulted in substantial damage to the airplane. Postaccident examination of the airplane revealed that the door safety latch, warning system, and door latching mechanism worked properly. The operator reported that it was possible to latch the door with the forward pin in its proper anchor point and with the aft pin outside the airframe with the warning light extinguished. The operator further reported that, after the accident, this was covered in aircrew training and the company standard operating procedures.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to properly secure the crew hatch door before takeoff, which resulted in the door’s forward hinge assembly tearing from its fuselage mount point.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA20CA100
- Event ID
- 20200212X55940
- Case number
- ERA20CA100
- 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: 049be58ddb3f0d0648ee921dccf180d68be29323f4a195c17bd2178b8ec81016; retrieved 2026-09-16T11:06:25.605Z.