LAX93FA300 · Cessna 310H
Cessna 310H · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) on approach
From Grand Canyon National Park Airport (GCN) to Van Nuys Airport (VNY)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX93FA300
- 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
- 6 · 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 310H
- 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
- N310HJ
- Operator
- Yehiem Konski
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Grand Canyon National Park Airport (GCN), Grand Canyon, AZTo Van Nuys Airport (VNY), Van Nuys, 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
- 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
- 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
- Fuel exhaustion; Stall/spin
- 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
- Pilot in command › Airspeed(vmc), not maintained
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, improper
- Pilot in command › Stall/spin, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE FLIGHT DEPARTED THE AIRPORT WITH ABOUT 4.0 HOURS OF FUEL FOR A PLANNED DESTINATION FLIGHT OF 2.0 HOURS. THE INVESTIGATION DID NOT DETERMINE IF THE FLIGHT LANDED AT ANY OTHER AIRPORT BEFORE THE ACCIDENT. WHEN THE FLIGHT WAS NEAR THE ACCIDENT SITE, ABOUT 4 HOURS AFTER THE FLIGHT DEPARTED THE AIRPORT, THE PILOT CONTACTED THE AIRPORT CONTROL TOWER AND REQUESTED AND RECEIVED LANDING INSTRUCTIONS. THERE WERE NO FURTHER COMMUNICATIONS BETWEEN THE FLIGHT AND THE CONTROL TOWER. GROUND WITNESSES REPORTED THAT THE AIRPLANE'S ENGINES BEGAN TO SPUTTER, FOLLOWED BY THE AIRCRAFT ENTERING INTO A SPIN. DURING THE SPIN, BOTH ENGINES BEGAN TO DEVELOP POWER WHICH CONTINUED UNTIL IMPACT. THE WRECKAGE EXAMINATION DISCLOSED EVIDENCE OF POWER BEING DEVELOPED AT IMPACT AND THAT THE LEFT MAIN FUEL SELECTOR VALVE WAS SELECTED TO THE CROSSFEED POSITION. THERE WAS NO EVIDENCE OF ANY FUEL IN THE FUEL TANKS OR FUEL SPILLAGE.
Probable cause
the pilot's improper in-flight planning/decision and his failure to maintain the minimum control airspeed which progressed to an inadverent stall/spin. Factors relating to this accident were fuel exhaustion and the pilot's lack of experience in the accident airplane.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX93FA300
- Event ID
- 20001211X12936
- Case number
- LAX93FA300
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1993-07-26.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 3245a03823f8f24ed94cbd331b13c3f32cb8d2ab9e03ade71bb4051794a43734; retrieved 2026-09-21T00:26:59.617Z.