Charlotte Amalie – Virgin Gorda

On February 11, 2017 at 08:04 PM, Charlotte Amalie – Virgin Gorda experienced a crash involving Cessna 402, operated by Tropical Transport Services, with the event recorded near Virgin Gorda All British Virgin Islands.

The flight was categorized as scheduled revenue flight and the reported phase was landing (descent or approach) at a airport (less than 10 km from airport) crash site.

9 people were known to be on board, 0 fatalities were recorded, 9 survivors were identified or estimated. This corresponds to an estimated fatality rate of 0.0%.

Crew on board: 1, crew fatalities: 0, passengers on board: 8, passenger fatalities: 0, other fatalities: 0.

The listed crash cause is technical failure. The aircraft was flying from St Thomas in the US Virgin Islands to Virgin Gorda (VIJ) in the British Virgin Islands. There were eight passengers on board, together with the pilot. It was the pilot’s eleventh flight of the day, and his fourth flight to Virgin Gorda. All these flights were short, with the longest flight being about 40 minutes duration and the shortest just a few minutes. The flight from St Thomas to Virgin Gorda took 35 minutes. The weather in Virgin Gorda was excellent with a light easterly wind and little cloud. The pilot commenced his approach to Virgin Gorda using his usual turning and configuration points. The aircraft touched down normally on runway 03 and the pilot retracted the flaps before applying the brakes. The brakes responded, although the pilot commented that the right brake did not seem to respond as positively as he expected. The pilot reapplied the brakes but the left brake pedal “flopped to the floor”. Judging he had insufficient room to abort the landing, the pilot continued to pump the brakes which he did not consider to be responding. He shut down the engines before the aircraft left the paved surface, struck signage and then a low wall before coming to rest on a bank. The pilot vacated the aircraft through the side window and then opened the main door to allow the passengers to exit the aircraft. None of the occupants was injured. The aircraft was extensively damaged.

Aircraft reference details include registration N603AB, MSN 402C-0603, year of manufacture 1982.