FTW98LA081 · Cessna 310R
Cessna 310R · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) during an emergency descent
From Mid Valley Airpark (E98) to L39 · Ramona, CA
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW98LA081
- 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
- N87358
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Mid Valley Airpark (E98), Los Lunas, NMTo L39 · Ramona, CA
- 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
- Emergency 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
- Total loss of engine power (non-mechanical)
- 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
- 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 › Aircraft preflight, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot serviced the right engine with oil prior to departure. While in flight, oil was observed coming from the rear of the right engine. The pilot feathered the right engine; however, the aircraft was not able to maintain altitude, and he brought the right engine back on line. Prior to landing, the pilot lowered the landing gear and feathered the propeller. The right engine stopped at approximately 100 feet short of the approach end of the runway and the aircraft stalled approximately 15 feet above the ground. The aircraft dropped suddenly, then impacted the ground. Postaccident examination of the aircraft by an FAA inspector revealed that the oil cap was not properly secured on the right engine. As a result, oil was being siphoned from the oil filler tube.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain adequate airspeed, which resulted in a stall. A factor related to the accident was the pilot's inadequate preflight inspection, which failed to secure the right engine oil cap, resulting in oil exhaustion and the loss of engine power.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW98LA081
- Event ID
- 20001208X09315
- Case number
- FTW98LA081
- 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: 6dd3f375b21246ca1702645bb39375c1df8a6fa0b4fc678ab8ff2f5ae9f35f7b; retrieved 2026-09-21T20:58:30.853Z.