NYC90FA054 · Cessna 310R
Cessna 310R · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Chautauqua County-Dunkirk Airport (DKK) to Patrick Leahy Burlington International Airport (BTV)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC90FA054
- 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
- 3 · 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 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
- N5115J
- Operator
- Malcolm French
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Chautauqua County-Dunkirk Airport (DKK), Dunkirk, NYTo Patrick Leahy Burlington International Airport (BTV), Burlington, VT
- 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 · IFR initial 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
- 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
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Burlington, VT, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE CESSNA 310 DISAPPEARED FROM RADAR AS IT WS BEING VECTORED TO AN ILS APPROACH AT NIGHT IN IMC CONDITIONS. SUBSEUQENTLY IT CRASHED IN LAKE CHAMPLAIN. THE LAST RECORDED ALTITUDE WAS 2100 FT, EXCEPT THE CONTROLLER SAW IT MOMENTARILY AT 1200 FEET PRIOR TO ITS DISAPPEARANCE. COMMUNICATIONS WERE NORMAL. A PORTION OF THE FUSELAGE WAS RECOVERED SEVERAL MONTHS AFTER THE ACCIDENT; HOWEVER, AN EXAM OF THIS PORTION OF THE WRECKAGE DID NOT REVEAL WHY THE ACDNT HAD OCCURRED.
Probable cause
FOR AN UNKNOWN REASON, THE AIRCRAFT ENTERED A DESCENT AND CRASHED IN A LAKE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC90FA054
- Event ID
- 20001212X22478
- Case number
- NYC90FA054
- 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: 026e1dbff4d041147e2035201fdbcdc8a71736b06c0aa86263277fa89f487cc6; retrieved 2026-09-21T03:01:59.244Z.