FTW96LA224 · Cessna 310C
Cessna 310C · Accident: loss of engine power en route
From Banning Municipal Airport (BNG) to E80 · Belen, NM
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW96LA224
- 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 310C
- 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
- N1813H
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Banning Municipal Airport (BNG), Banning, CATo E80 · Belen, NM
- 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 · descent
- 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 engine power
- 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
- Fuel exhaustion
- 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
- Fluid, fuel › Exhaustion
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the pilot, the airplane was fully serviced with fuel (130 gal usable) before takeoff. The pilot planned on a fuel consumption of 25 gph per the manufacturer's data, which would have provided a 1 hour fuel reserve. En route the flight encountered forecasted turbulence. The pilot stated that during descent, both engines 'stopped like fuel starvation.' The airplane was maneuvered for a forced landing on a highway, but due to traffic, a railroad right-of-way was selected. During a wheels-up landing, the right wingtip collided with a boulder. The right wing auxillary fuel tank was compromised, and the fuel line separated from the right tip (main) tank, but there was no physical evidence of fuel at the site. About 1 pint of fuel remained in the right main tank; the left main tank was empty. Both fuel selectors were set for the main tanks. During test runs, the left engine rotated, but was not run due to a fuel leak ('O' ring) at the throttle body. The right engine would only run when an external fuel boost pump was 'ON.' An 'O' ring fuel leak was observed at the engine fuel pump, and the pump exhibited a fuel stain from seepage. The fuel pump and the metering unit (after replacing the 'O' ring) flowed within specifications. Both units appeared to be leaking; they were deteriorated and in need of overhaul to change the rubber components. Time since the last annual inspection was 21 hours.
Probable cause
loss of total engine power due to fuel exhaustion for undetermined reason(s). The lack of suitable terrain for the forced landing was a related factor. The worn and leaking fuel system components and inadequate maintenance by unknown personnel were possible factors.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW96LA224
- Event ID
- 20001208X05772
- Case number
- FTW96LA224
- 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: 52beb79249ec8f9bbb8451cf372afc7ba3a044e988b71c74d6244e3d88e5df29; retrieved 2026-09-22T22:27:43.496Z.