LAX92LA093 · Cessna 310Q
Jim Mayes Cessna 310Q · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Honolulu, HI to Kahului International Airport (OGG)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX92LA093
- 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
- 5 · 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Cessna 310Q
- 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
- N787AM
- Operator
- Jim Mayes
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Honolulu, HITo Kahului International Airport (OGG), Kahului, MAUI, HI
- 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 · cruise
- 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
- In flight encounter with weather
- 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
- Visual flight rules (VFR) flight into instrument meteorological conditions (IMC)
- 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 › Aircraft control, uncontrolled
- Pilot in command › Spatial disorientation
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, continued
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE FLT DEPARTED HONOLULU WITH RADAR FLIGHT FOLLOWING TO THE THE LIMIT OF THE TCA; THE LAST RADIO COMMUNICATION WAS AT ABOUT 0850 HRS. FOR THE NEXT APRX ONE HOUR, RECORDED RADAR DATA SHOWS THE AIRPLANE N AND E OF MOLOKAI AND MAUI AT ALTITUDES VARYING FROM 100 FT TO 13,600 FT BEFORE DISAPPEARING FROM RADAR. THE LAST POSITION WAS ABOUT 45 MI N OF MAUI IN THE PACIFIC OCEAN. PILOTS FLYING IN THE GENERAL VICINITY OF LANAI, MOLOKAI AND MAUI ISLANDS REPORTED ENCOUNTERING LOWERING CEILINGS & VISIBILITIES AS THEY PROGRESSED E FROM HONOLULU, WITH IFR CONDITIONS IN THE AREA OF LANAI. WEATHER FORECASTS FOR LOCATIONS W AND E OF THE ACCIDENT AREA WERE FOR MARGINAL VFR CONDITIONS. THE 0945 WEATHER AT MOLOKAI WAS 300 FT SCATTERED, 1,000 FT OVERCAST, AND VISIBILITY 1-1/2 MI IN RAIN AND FOG. A NEARLY STATIONARY FRONTAL SYSTEM WAS LOCATED JUST W OF KAUI. THE AIRPLANE WAS NOT RECOVERED; DAMAGE AND INJURIES ARE PRESUMED.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S CONTINUATION OF VFR FLIGHT INTO INSTRUMENT METEOROLOGICAL CONDITIONS RESULTING IN SPATIAL DISORIENTATION AND LOSS OF AIRCRAFT CONTROL. FACTORS WHICH CONTRIBUTED TO THE ACCIDENT WERE: THE ADVERSE WEATHER CONDITIONS AND THE PILOT'S FAILURE TO OBTAIN AN ADEQUATE WEATHER BRIEFING BEFORE FLIGHT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX92LA093
- Event ID
- 20001211X14010
- Case number
- LAX92LA093
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (5)
- 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: 9207c91edfe63a3dc2ef9063c4d5c4bc15d88e269e22a65e27c4c738600fea44; retrieved 2026-09-21T01:24:16.832Z.
- Corrected after a review of the NTSB narrative, which states these values explicitly: departure. The narrative states "THE FLT DEPARTED HONOLULU WITH RADAR FLIGHT FOLLOWING"; the departure was not recorded.