NTSB Factual Report

On October 21, 2005, at approximately 1550 Pacific daylight time, a Cessna 402B, N402CA, was substantially damaged during a landing attempt at the Sandpoint Airport, Sandpoint, Idaho. The commercial pilot and his passenger were not injured. Aeroflight Executive Service, Inc., was operating the flight under Title 14 CFR Part 91. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed for the cross-country, positioning flight which originated approximately 35 minutes before the accident. A company VFR flight plan was on file.

The pilot said that the flight was normal and his approach to landing was normal; however, flaps were extended to 45 degrees on one-half mile final. He said that as the wheels touched down, the gear warning horn began to sound and the right wing slowly began to fall to the ground. The pilot said that from this point on he had no directional control of the airplane, and it departed the right side of the runway. Subsequently, the right wingtip fuel tank impacted a runway light, which compromised the tank. Additionally, the right aileron received a deep gouge in it and the outboard bottom of the wing was damaged.

The pilot certificated passenger said, in a telephone interview with a Federal Aviation Inspector, that the pilot said to him while on final approach, "watch me make the first taxiway [1,342 feet]." The passenger further stated that "the approach looked really slow." The pilot-passenger said that the resulting landing was "joltingly hard." He said that he was not sure if they had hit something. He said that after the right wing was down on the runway, he saw fuel draining from the right tip tank. He said that after the airplane came to rest, he exited through the rear door; there was no post landing fire.

A construction employee, who was acting as a ground traffic-safety person at the approach end to runway 01, said she observed the airplane land in the dirt, short of the runway. She said that it looked like the airplane landed "very hard", and then it bounced into the air. One of the fixed base operations employees stated that he saw the airplane on a steep final approach. He said that he lost sight of the airplane behind a building, but then saw the airplane perform its "second landing." The employee said the approach end to runway 01 has a 1 to 2 inch lip from the terrain to the surface of the runway.

NTSB Probable Cause

The pilot's misjudged distance/altitude, which led to him landing short of the runway and impacting the runway's elevated lip. Contributing factors were the elevated runway lip and the right main landing gear failure.