Aex Air Cessna 310I accident
Cessna 310I · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From North Las Vegas Airport (VGT) to Van Nuys Airport (VNY)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's departure or destination and aircraft involved. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX97FA036
- 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 310I Possible conflict
- 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
- N8046M
- Operator
- Aex Air
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route Possible conflict
- From North Las Vegas Airport (VGT), North Las Vegas, NVTo Van Nuys Airport (VNY)
- 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
- Approach · IFR missed 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
- 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
- Company/operator management › Inadequate initial training
- Pilot in command › Spatial disorientation
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot ascertained Burbank's weather had deteriorated and he diverted to Van Nuys. ATC issued the pilot an instrument clearance for the ILS 16R approach. The pilot proceeded inbound and ATC stated 'report canceling, I'll be monitoring.' When the airplane was north of the airport about 2,000 feet msl, the pilot informed ATC that he had the airport in sight. He did not request closure of his flight plan. The pilot descended to 900 feet, entered a fog bank, initiated a missed approach and climbed to 1,200 feet. The aircraft subsequently descended and impacted a taxiway near midfield and slid 700 feet where it collided with five parked airplanes. The impacts activated several ELTs. The controller took no action regarding the radar target's disappearance and the aircraft's instrument flight plan remained open. No FAA ground-based receiver recorded the ELT signals which were eventually heard by SARSAT. The airplane was found 4 hours after the crash, and after the pilot had succumbed to his injuries. The operator had failed to provide required training to the pilot who had a history of unsatisfactory instrument flying performance. A pilot on the ground reported that a fog bank moved over the airport from west to east at the time the aircraft was landing. The visibility was reported by the witness to be 20 feet at the time of the accident.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain a climb following initiation of a missed approach in fog due to spatial disorientation, and his inadequate training by company personnel. Potential rescue was delayed due to the FAA radar controller's failure to follow established communication procedures for overdue aircraft.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX97FA036
- Event ID
- 20001208X07054
- Case number
- LAX97FA036
- 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: 2e19ae4173ad5016d488c8afff967d6aab0fd1a22b8256cd75a5ace9dc8e9756; retrieved 2026-09-18T13:33:56.945Z.