CHI96LA047 · Cessna 310R
Cessna 310R · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From West Michigan Regional Airport (BIV) to Michigan City Municipal Airport (MGC)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI96LA047
- 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
- 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
- N5CX
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From West Michigan Regional Airport (BIV), Holland, MITo Michigan City Municipal Airport (MGC)
- 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
- Approach
- 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
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Stall/mush
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Airspeed(vref), improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE AIRPLANE WAS PICKING UP OCCASIONAL LIGHT RIME ICE IN THE CLOUDS WHILE IN IMC CRUISE FLIGHT AT 4,000 FEET. THE PILOT TURNED ON THE ANTI-ICE AND DEICING SYSTEMS. DURING DESCENT, THE PILOT REPORTED VFR CONDITIONS AND THAT THE AIRPLANE WAS CLEAN OF ICE. THE PILOT PLANNED FOR A VISUAL APPROACH TO THE RUNWAY. ANTICIPATING THAT THE RUNWAY MAY BE SLICK, A SHORT FIELD APPROACH AND LANDING WAS EXECUTED. ON FINAL APPROACH, AND AT 85 KNOTS, THE PILOT EXPERIENCED 'A SUDDEN LOSS OF LIFT.' THE AIRPLANE STRUCK THE TERRAIN APPROXIMATELY 50 FEET SHORT OF THE RUNWAY. THE PILOT REPORTED RECEIVING NO VISUAL OR AURAL INDICATIONS OF AN IMPENDING STALL. THE CESSNA 310R PILOT'S OPERATING HANDBOOK REFERENCES THE MINIMUM MULTI-ENGINE APPROACH SPEED FOR THE AIRPLANE TO BE 93 KIAS AT A GROSS WEIGHT OF 5,400 POUNDS. THIS SPEED DECREASES BY APPROXIMATELY FOUR KNOTS FOR EACH 400 POUND REDUCTION IN AIRPLANE GROSS WEIGHT. THE AIRPLANE'S GROSS WEIGHT WAS APPROXIMATELY 5,218 POUNDS AT THE TIME OF THE ACCIDENT.
Probable cause
the pilot-in-command's selecting and maintaining an improper approach speed.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI96LA047
- Event ID
- 20001207X04838
- Case number
- CHI96LA047
- 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: 802f1d68563a3a2ab9fa5dd8f0afb712471cedfb2980c85b9c14601ff4297124; retrieved 2026-09-22T23:00:19.998Z.