Sky Executive Airlines Flight 401
Let L-410UVP · Controlled flight into terrain after spatial disorientation, partly due to faults in the electrical system
From Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport (ABV) to Calabar Airport, Nigeria
Event
- 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
- Event fatalities
- 5 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- Occupants
- Unknown
- Survivors
- Unknown
- InjuriesFatal: death within 30 days. Serious: over 48 hours in hospital within a week, most broken bones, severe bleeding, nerve or organ damage, or serious burns. Minor: anything less. Glossary
- 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
Let L-410UVP
- Aircraft type
- Let L-410
- Category
- Airplane · from aircraft type
- 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
- 9Q-CGX
- Operator
- Sky Executive Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- 5
- Route
- From Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport (ABV)To Calabar Airport, Nigeria
Cause areas
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
- Personnel issues › Psychological
- Aircraft › Aircraft systems
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
From the investigation findings the Wikipedia article reports, sorted into the NTSB's cause areas with AI assistance.
Not plotted · Not plotted: the Wikipedia article gives no coordinates, and its site names no town or airport that matches exactly.
From the Wikipedia article
Sky Executive Flight 401 (flight number: SXC401) was a domestic positioning flight of a Let L-410UVP of the Nigerian airline Sky Executive Airlines on 21 May 2002 from Port Harcourt to Calabar. Because the crew was distracted by an electrical problem on board, the aircraft was flown into a swamp, killing all five occupants.
Accident sequence
Before take-off the chief mechanic is said to have replaced the carbon brush set of the starboard starter. The aircraft took off from Abuja at 16:30 for the flight to Port Harcourt. Having arrived there, all passengers disembarked and the aircraft took off at 18:50 for the positioning flight to Calabar, where the aircraft was due to land at 19:27. On approach to the airport there, the pilots declared an emergency because of an electrical defect. At a distance of 65 km from the destination airport the pilots initiated a descent to 2,500 feet altitude. After reaching this altitude the descent was continued until the aircraft struck a swamp at 19:42 local time.
Investigation and cause
Cause
The accident investigation found that the aircraft had collided with the terrain because of a prematurely initiated descent from an altitude of 2,500 feet. As a contributing factor it was noted that the crew had failed to monitor the flight instruments because of distraction by the fault in the electrical system. Adverse weather conditions associated with low-hanging clouds had also impaired visibility. In the course of the accident investigation it also emerged that the aircraft had not been maintained in accordance with the maintenance schedules. For example, the engines had not been maintained in accordance with standard procedures, and neither the aircraft nor its crew had been properly documented. The prescribed maintenance date had been overdue by 248 operating hours, and, contrary to the regulations of the Nigerian civil aviation authority, there had been neither a flight data recorder nor a voice recorder on board.
Translated into English with AI assistance from the German Wikipedia article “Sky-Executive-Airlines-Flug 401” (revision 230671649, retrieved 2026-09-19) by its authors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Extracted as plain text: references, tables, images and some sections are left out; the translation may contain errors, and long articles were cut to their first 700 words. Read the article
Sources
German Wikipedia article: Sky-Executive-Airlines-Flug 401
- Translation
- Into English with AI assistance; names of linked operators and aircraft types from Wikidata. It may contain errors.
- Revision
- 230671649 · 2023-02-08 · retrieved 2026-09-19
- Wikidata
- Q116621712
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
Where each value comes from
- Record
- de Wikipedia article "Sky-Executive-Airlines-Flug 401" (page 12388402, revision 230671649), translated into English with AI assistance
- Date
- Wikipedia infobox: date
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site
- Map position
- none
- Aircraft, operator and route
- Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports)
- Operation
- flight number in the article title
- Fatalities
- Wikipedia infobox: aircraft fatalities
- Ground fatalities
- not stated in the Wikipedia infobox
- Summary
- Wikipedia article lead
Source notes (1)
- Wikipedia · Facts from the German Wikipedia article's infobox, translated into English with AI assistance, not checked against an investigation report. Independent review pending.