BFO95LA027 · Cessna 310Q
Gordon Air Management Cessna 310Q · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Akron Canton Regional Airport (CAK) to Lancaster Airport (LNS)
Event
- NTSB case
- BFO95LA027
- 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
- 0 · 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Cessna 310Q
- 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
- N7943Q
- Operator
- Gordon Air Management
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Akron Canton Regional Airport (CAK), Akron, OHTo Lancaster Airport (LNS), Lancaster, PA
- 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 · 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 encounter with weather
- 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
- Anti-ice/deice system, wing › Malfunction
- Pilot in command › Aircraft control, not possible
- Wing › Ice
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT REPORTED THAT THE AIRPLANE WAS IN CRUISE FLIGHT AT 9000 FEET MSL WHEN THE AIRPLANE ENCOUNTERED ICING CONDITIONS, AND ICE BEGAN TO ACCUMULATE ON THE WING LEADING EDGES. THE PILOT RECEIVED CLEARANCE TO A LOWER ALTITUDE, BUT THE ICE CONTINUED TO ACCUMULATE. THE PILOT STATED THAT WHEN HE ACTIVATED THE DE-ICE BOOTS THE RIGHT WING DE-ICE BOOT DID NOT ACTIVATE. THE PILOT ELECTED TO DIVERT TO THE NEAREST AIRPORT 12 NAUTICAL MILES AWAY. THE PILOT REPORTED THAT AS THE AIRPLANE SLOWED FOR LANDING, THE ASYMMETRICAL ICE ON THE WINGS RESULTED IN AN UNSTABLE APPROACH. THE AIRPLANE IMPACTED THE GROUND, AND POSTIMPACT FIRES OCCURRED ON BOTH WINGS. POSTACCIDENT EXAMINATION REVEALED THAT THE LEFT DE-ICE BOOTS WERE CAPABLE OF NORMAL OPERATION, BUT FIRE DAMAGE TO THE RIGHT WING PRECLUDED FUNCTIONAL TESTING OF THE RIGHT WING DE-ICE BOOT.
Probable cause
The failure of the right wing de-ice boot during operation in conditions of ice accumulation, which resulted in a loss of aircraft controllability during the approach/landing. The icing condition was a factor.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record BFO95LA027
- Event ID
- 20001207X02828
- Case number
- BFO95LA027
- 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: investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 474b4cfcca563dfb17e0ee224cc7eb0c1c7674cb987ae0e0f4803e561eab4ff1; retrieved 2026-09-21T13:27:18.886Z.