SEA95FA011 · Cessna 310R
Cessna 310R · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water en route
From an unrecorded airport to Yampa Valley Airport (HDN)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA95FA011
- 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
- 4 · 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
- General aviation
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Visual 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
- N69350
- Operator
- Schultz, Mark, L. · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Yampa Valley Airport (HDN), Hayden, CO
- 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 91: General Aviation
- 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
- In flight collision with terrain/water
- 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 › Clearance, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT, WHO HAD NOT FLOWN INTO THE RAWLINS AIRPORT, WAS ADVISED BY A PILOT FAMILIAR WITH THE AIRPORT TO DEPART TO THE SOUTHWEST TO AVOID RISING TERRAIN. THE PILOT DEPARTED UNDER DARK NIGHT CONDITIONS FROM RUNWAY 22 AND TURNED WEST TOWARDS HIGH TERRAIN. THE NET GAIN IN ELEVATION FROM TAKEOFF TO IMPACT WAS APPROXIMATELY 800 FEET OVER APPROXIMATELY TWO MINUTES OF FLIGHT TIME, WHEREAS THE ALL ENGINE CLIMB CAPABILITY OF THE AIRCRAFT FULLY LOADED SHOULD HAVE BEEN TWICE THAT AMOUNT. DISASSEMBLY AND INSPECTION OF THE ENGINES REVEALED NO EVIDENCE OF MECHANICAL MALFUNCTIONS. THE AIRCRAFT IMPACTED A RIDGE LINE APPROXIMATELY 50 FEET BELOW THE RIM OF THE SADDLE.
Probable cause
THE PILOT-IN-COMMAND'S NOT MAINTAINING CLEARANCE WITH TERRAIN. FACTORS CONTRIBUTING TO THE ACCIDENT WERE HIGH TERRAIN, DARK NIGHT CONDITIONS, AND THE PILOT-IN-COMMAND'S NOT OBTAINING/ MAINTAINING THE PROPER CLIMB RATE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA95FA011
- Event ID
- 20001206X02524
- Case number
- SEA95FA011
- 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 1994-10-27.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 7aa14347c87599fe6191e8529421d458b9c4cc0415db18bc3bf1fbf22a12d995; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:57:47.942Z.