NYC00FA063 · Cessna 310N
Tech Aviation Cessna 310N · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) on approach
From Wilkes-Barre/Scranton International Airport (AVP) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC00FA063
- 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
- 2 · 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 310N
- 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
- N70CM
- Operator
- Tech Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Wilkes-Barre/Scranton International Airport (AVP), Wilkes-Barre, PATo 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 · VFR pattern downwind
- 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 starvation
- 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
- Dual student › Fuel management, inadequate
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Fuel management, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Several witnesses saw the airplane before impact, and heard engine noise oscillating between no power and high power. Examination of the wreckage revealed that the two main fuel tanks were ruptured and charred, but the two auxiliary fuel tanks were not compromised, and appeared absent of fuel. Only drops of fuel were found in the mechanical fuel pumps, fuel lines from the pumps to the mixture controls, and the fuel lines from the mixture controls to the injection manifolds. Examination of the airframe, engines, and propellers, did not reveal any pre-impact mechanical malfunctions. Review of the fueling records revealed that all four tanks were completely fueled about 1 month prior to the accident. The airplane was operated several times after that fueling, and fuel was added to the main fuel tanks on four occasions before the accident. However, fuel was never added to the auxiliary fuel tanks. Although both auxiliary fuel tanks appeared absent of fuel at the accident site, the investigative team was unable to confirm the fuel selector positions prior to impact. The flight instructor had about 50 hours of flight experience in the make and model accident airplane, and the pilot/owner had about 100 hours of flight experience in the accident airplane.
Probable cause
Both pilots' failure to adequately manage the fuel supply, which resulted in fuel starvation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC00FA063
- Event ID
- 20001212X20421
- Case number
- NYC00FA063
- 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: e04d07f824ac037d4fc4564bfea297ce0bf524ba5e6f1df39ae35c8123b48af6; retrieved 2026-09-20T21:32:04.268Z.