Christiansted – Charlotte Amalie

On February 8, 1997 at 07:32 PM, Christiansted – Charlotte Amalie experienced a crash involving Cessna 402, operated by Air Sunshine, with the event recorded near Charlotte Amalie-Cyril E. King (ex Harry S. Truman) All US Virgin Islands.

The flight was categorized as scheduled revenue flight and the reported phase was landing (descent or approach) at a lake, sea, ocean, river crash site.

5 people were known to be on board, 2 fatalities were recorded, 3 survivors were identified or estimated. This corresponds to an estimated fatality rate of 40.0%.

Crew on board: 1, crew fatalities: 0, passengers on board: 4, passenger fatalities: 2, other fatalities: 0.

The listed crash cause is human factor. As the flight made a visual approach to the airport from the south over the sea, at night, the pilot changed his navigation radio from the VOR to the ILS system for runway 10 and lost DME reading from the VOR located on a hill north of the localizer course. The localizer showed the flight was south of the localizer course, and without DME from the VOR the pilot believed he was much closer to the island and the airport than the aircraft actually was. As the pilot attempted to make visual contact with the airport and maintain clearance from the hills he allowed the aircraft to descend and crash into the sea about 3 miles southwest of the airport. The pilot had not filed a FAA flight plan for the scheduled commuter flight. The pilot had been flying the route for 5 days and had no previous experience in the area. The pilot reported he had no mechanical malfunctions with the aircraft systems, flight controls, or engines. No FAA Operations inspectors had conducted surveillance on the company's flight operations in the Caribbean since service had begun in December 1996.

Aircraft reference details include registration N318AB, MSN 402C-0318, year of manufacture 1980.