Morgan Aviation Cessna 310Q accident
Cessna 310Q · Accident: in flight encounter with weather on approach
From Blue Grass Airport (LEX) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI89LA001
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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 310Q
- 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
- N8157Q
- Operator
- Morgan Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Blue Grass Airport (LEX), Lexington, KYTo 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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 turn to base
- 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 encounter with weather
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Flight into known adverse weather, continued
- Pilot in command › Go-around, not performed
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, poor
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT FLEW A VOR APPROACH TO THE AIRPORT, BUT WAS TOO HIGH TO LAND ON THE APPROACH RUNWAY. HE EXECUTED A CIRCLING VFR PATTERN TO LAND ON THE RECIPROCAL RUNWAY, THEN FLEW INTO THE GROUND FOG IN THE DESCENDING BASE TURN. THE LEFT WING STRUCK A TREE WHILE IN THE TURN. THE PILOT HAD RECIEVED A COMPLETE WEATHER BRIEF OF THE EXISTING CONDITIONS, AND SAW PATCHY GROUND FOG PRIOR TO EXECUTING THE APPROACH. THE PILOT AND PASSENGER HAD LEFT AT 0830 THE PREVIOUS DAY, FLOWN TO A FOOTBALL GAME, AND WERE RETURNING WHEN THE ACCIDENT OCCURRED AT 0050 EST.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI89LA001
- Event ID
- 20001213X27004
- Case number
- CHI89LA001
- 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: f794c918845ca379951972022d4dfded49d9ade2398e420fe99c4c4b354172bd; retrieved 2026-09-18T19:18:08.394Z.