NYC00LA246 · Cessna 310G
Cessna 310G · Accident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From Peachtree City Falcon Field (FFC) to Floyd Bennett Memorial Airport (GFL)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC00LA246
- 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
- 0 · 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 310G
- 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
- N8978Z
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Peachtree City Falcon Field (FFC), Atlanta, GATo Floyd Bennett Memorial Airport (GFL), Glens Falls, NY
- 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- 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
- Tree(s)
- 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
- Pilot in command › Airspeed(vmc), not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While at 5,000 feet in VMC, the right engine spinner look unusual to the pilot. He reduced the throttle, but could not identify the problem, so he secured the engine. A tear in the spinner was identified. The pilot restarted the engine, but then shut it down because of a vibration. The pilot advised ATC that he had secured the engine, and needed to divert. While on short final, the pilot realized he would not make his intended touchdown point, because the airplane was too high. With the airplane 'sinking excessively,' the pilot decided to go around. He advanced the throttle on the left engine, the airplane rolled right, and then impacted trees. The right spinner had a 1/2-inch crack that started at its base and ran perpendicular to the rotation of the propeller. The crack then transitioned to a tear. The fracture surface for the crack was grayish in color, and consistent with fatigue. The POH stated that the pilot was to check the propeller and spinner for 'nicks, security and oil leaks,' prior to flight. The recommended safe single-engine speed for the airplane was 92 knots.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain the manufacture's recommended safe single-engine airspeed, which resulted in a velocity-minimum-control roll to the right. A factor in the accident was the pilot's failure to maintain a proper glide path to his intended touchdown point, which resulted in a single engine go-around attempt.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC00LA246
- Event ID
- 20001212X22050
- Case number
- NYC00LA246
- 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: 324aeec8ad39267fd0c9e894aca8e3e78d63fe7c64b5cca93a11d4a5ba90eec9; retrieved 2026-09-21T20:05:50.107Z.