Pacific Air Charter Flight 1920
Cessna 310R · Accident: loss of control in flight en route
From Montgomery-Gibbs Executive Airport (MYF) to Hollywood Burbank/Bob Hope Airport (BUR)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX94FA116
- 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
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Completed
- API-reported fatalities
- 1 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Cessna 310R
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 310
- Category
- Airplane
- 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
- N1976Y
- Operator
- Pacific Air Charter
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Montgomery-Gibbs Executive Airport (MYF), San Diego, CATo Hollywood Burbank/Bob Hope Airport (BUR), Burbank, CA
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- En route · climb to cruise
- First occurrenceThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Loss of control in flight
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Aircraft control, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT RECEIVED 2 WEATHER BRIEFINGS AND WAS INFORMED THAT VERY MOIST AND UNSTABLE AIR, PRECIPITATION, OCCASIONAL MODERATE TURBULENCE AND ISOLATED SEVERE TURBULENCE WAS FORECAST. MULTIPLE CLOUD LAYERS EXISTED; IT WAS A DARK NIGHT. THE PILOT DEPARTED CARRYING BANK CARGO AND BEGAN CLIMBING IN IMC TO 6,000 FEET IN A N-W DIRECTION PARALLELING THE COASTLINE. NEARBY, A PILOT IN ANOTHER LIGHT AIRPLANE EXPERIENCED MODERATE TURBULENCE AND HEAVY RAIN. THE ACCIDENT PILOT COMMENCED A S-W TURN INITIALLY PERPENDICULAR TO THE DESIRED COURSE. THEN, WHILE CONTINUING THE LEFT TURN RADAR CONTACT WAS LOST AS THE AIRPLANE SUDDENLY COMMENCED AN UNCONTROLLED DESCENT FROM 4,400 FEET TO SEA LEVEL IN ABOUT 1/4 MINUTE. THE MAIN WRECKAGE WAS FOUND 1,000 FEET BELOW SEA LEVEL ABOUT 0.2 MILES FROM ITS LAST RADAR POSITION. UNDERWATER VIDEO SHOWED THAT THE AIRPLANE HAD FRAGMENTED INTO OVER 200 PIECES. THE WRECKAGE WAS NOT RECOVERED.
Probable cause
the pilot's failure to maintain control of the airplane. Factors in the accident were the dark night lighting conditions, moderate to severe turbulence, and heavy rain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX94FA116
- Event ID
- 20001206X00754
- Case number
- LAX94FA116
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (4)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1994-02-08.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 2ee3866abc0d4a2153aa931f4a32e13880f8e6aa03d759f65a180641909cc462; retrieved 2026-09-18T13:50:10.316Z.