LAX91LA385 · Cessna C-310B
Cessna C-310B · Accident: loss of control in flight en route
From Zamperini Field (TOA) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX91LA385
- 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Cessna C-310B
- Aircraft type
- Cessna C-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
- N5442A
- Operator
- Peter T. Bell · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Zamperini Field (TOA), Torrance, CATo 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
- 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
- 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
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT/MECHANIC COMPLETED AN ANNUAL INSPECTION ON THE AIRCRAFT AND INTENDED TO PERFORM A SHORT TEST FLIGHT OUT OVER THE CHANNEL BETWEEN THE MAINLAND AND AN ISLAND. THE ATCT CLEARED THE AIRCRAFT FOR TAKEOFF AT 1757 HOURS WITH A RIGHT DOWNWIND DEPARTURE. THERE WERE NO DOCUMENTED RADIO CONTACTS WITH THE AIRCRAFT AFTER THE PILOT LEFT THE LOCAL CONTROL FREQUENCY. RECORDED RADAR DATA SHOWED THE AIRCRAFT DEPARTING THE TORRANCE AIRPORT TRAFFIC AREA AND PROCEEDING SOUTH BOUND OVER THE CHANNEL FOR A DISTANCE OF ABOUT 10 MILES. THE TARGET THEN REVERSED COURSE AND WAS HEADED FOR THE MAINLAND AGAIN WHEN THE TARGET TRACK APPEARED TO MAKE AN ABRUPT LEFT TURN AND DISAPPEAR AT A POINT ABOUT SIX MILES SOUTH OF SAN PEDRO. SEVERAL WITNESSES WERE IN BOATS IN THE CHANNEL AT ABOUT THE TIME THE TARGET DISAPPEARED, AND IN THE GENERAL AREA OF THE LAST RECORDED RADAR POSITION. SEVERAL OF THE WITNESSES REPORTED HEARING SOUNDS OF AN ENGINE SPUTTERING THEN THE SOUNDS OF A LARGE SPLASH. ONE WITNESS REPORTED OBSERVING A LOW FLYING AIRCRAFT AT ABOUT 1830 HOURS JUST PRIOR TO HEARING THE LARGE SPLASH SOUNDS. THE WITNESS COULD NOT, HOWEVER, IDENTIFY THE AIRCRAFT MAKE, MODEL OR EVEN SPECIFIC CLASS (SINGLE OR MULTI ENGINE) THAT HE OBSERVED.
Probable cause
AN INFLIGHT LOSS OF CONTROL FOR UNDETERMINED REASONS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX91LA385
- Event ID
- 20001212X18116
- Case number
- LAX91LA385
- 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 1991-09-07.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 0565aedf5ee569aa7aef2e36b76b7aa51c52ac39c6938f3f3b89b4488fe32eff; retrieved 2026-09-21T01:35:50.876Z.