BFO93FA003 · Cessna 310R
Rader Aviation Cessna 310R · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water on approach
From Tri-State Airport / Milton J. Ferguson Field (HTS) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- BFO93FA003
- 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
- General aviation
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Unknown
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
- N711RG
- Operator
- Rader Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Tri-State Airport / Milton J. Ferguson Field (HTS), Huntington, WVTo not recorded
- 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
- In flight collision with terrain/water
- 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 › Altitude, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
AS THE AIRPLANE WAS APPROACHING THE (FLIGHT PLANNED) DESTINATION AT NIGHT, THE PILOT INDICATED HE WOULD LAND FROM A VISUAL APPROACH. HE CANCELED HIS IFR FLIGHT PLAN ABOUT 5 MILES WEST SOUTHWEST OF THE AIRPORT AND BEGAN A DESCENT. RADAR DATA WAS LOST AS THE AIRPLANE PASSED SOUTH OF THE AIRPORT ON AN EAST SOUTHEASTERLY HEADING AND HAD DESCENDED TO ABOUT 3000 FT MSL. IT COLLIDED WITH RISING TERRAIN AT AN ELEVATION OF ABOUT 3000 FT, AFTER TRAVELING AN ADDITIONAL 3 1/2 MILES. THE CRASH SITE WAS ABOUT 8 MILES SOUTH SOUTHEAST OF THE AIRPORT. THE WRECKAGE WAS STREWN OVER A DISTANCE OF ABOUT 512 FT THROUGH TREES ON A HEADING OF 122 DEGREES. A POST ACCIDENT EXAMINATION REVEALED THAT THE FLAPS WERE FULLY RETRACTED AND THE GEAR WAS STOWED. NO AIRFRAME OR ENGINE ANOMALIES WERE NOTED. ALL OF THE PROPELLER BLADES EXHIBITED TORSIONAL DAMAGE. A PATHOLOGICAL EXAM OF THE PILOT DID NOT REVEAL ANY MEDICAL PROBLEM THAT WOULD HAVE CAUSED THE ACCIDENT. LIGHT SNOW WAS FALLING AND LOW CLOUDS WERE IN THE AREA.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S INADEQUATE ALTITUDE (OR CLEARANCE) FROM MOUNTAINOUS HILLY TERRAIN. FACTORS RELATED TO THE ACCIDENT WERE DARKNESS, LOW CLOUDS, AND LIGHT SNOW.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record BFO93FA003
- Event ID
- 20001211X15992
- Case number
- BFO93FA003
- 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: 4f318ba2cba87dd9d850efa8cfe9e4baa8128c1ddeaef3c2b9e72711d14abaa5; retrieved 2026-09-21T00:49:41.196Z.