On January 27, a Cape Air Cessna 402C on Flight 9KI had its landing gear fail while completing Flight 1180 from Manistee, Michigan, to O’Hare International Airport. There were no injuries, but the landing gear collapse did temporarily close Runway 27R, which happens to be one of the shortest of O’Hare International Airport’s eight runways.
Flight 9K1, operated by a Cessna 402C twin-piston engine aircraft, left Manistee, Michigan for O’Hare International Airport at 8:02 AM local on January 27 and was able to cross Lake Michigan without incident flying at less than 10,000 feet. It arrives at O’Hare International Airport at 8:15 AM where the nose landing gear collapsed during landing.
As per the above graphic, Flight 9K1 connects a small western Michigan airport in Manistee with the airport with the world’s most runways and many airlines in O'Hare International Airport.
You can also see below a YouTube of a normal Cape Air landing at O'Hare International Airport:
Previous landing incident in 2021
For Cape Air, this is the second serious incident involving landing a Cessna 402C in three years. The 2021 incident at Provincetown Airport, a small airport on Cape Cod in Massachusetts, resulted in a runway overshoot requiring all seven souls aboard to be taken to the hospital.
Cape Air is a commuter airline with a headquarters in Hyannis, Massachusetts, that uses small aircraft like the Cessna 402C and the more modern Tecnam P2012 Traveller to connect small US airports to major ones. Cape Air flies more than 400 regional flights a day to nearly 40 cities in the Northeast, Midwest, Montana, and the tropics of the Caribbean.
Cape Air has agreements with both American Airlines and United Airlines, so flying with Cape Air as a segment of a longer trip is seamless with both airlines. The business model the airline uses for this route is the Essential Air Service (EAS) model.
This is a US government program to guarantee small communities in the United States have commercial air service flights to larger airports. In the eyes of Cape Air according to the airline's 25th anniversary book created in 2014;
“Public service flying” where small, transportation-challenged communities across the country are connected to the national transportation system, allowing opportunities for commerce, connectivity and a better quality of life for residents and visitors.
But these days, Cape Air is investing in electric aviation, hoping to be able to use 75 all-electric Eviation Alice commuter aircraft to reduce emissions and, ultimately, to replace the aging Cessna 402Cs.
What are your thoughts? Please share with civility in the comments.
