DEN89LA033 · Cessna 310H
Cessna 310H · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) on approach
From Shreveport Downtown Airport (DTN) to El Paso International Airport (ELP)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN89LA033
- 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 310H
- 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
- N1044Q
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Shreveport Downtown Airport (DTN), Shreveport, LATo El Paso International Airport (ELP), El Paso, TX
- 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 final
- 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
- Fluid, fuel › Starvation
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Emergency procedure, improper
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Fuel tank selector position, improper
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Procedures/directives, not followed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
ON AN IFR BUSINESS/TRAINING FLT, THE ATP PLT MADE AN UNSCHEDULED FUEL STOP. ON A PRACTICE ILS APCH TO RWY 3, CIRCLING TO LAND RWY 21, THE ACFT YAWED HARD RT AND THE PLT LOST DIRECTIONAL CONTROL. THE PLT SAID IT SOUNDED AND FELT LIKE THE RT ENGINE HAD LOST POWER. THE PLT SELECTED GEAR UP AND REDUCED THE THROTTLES AND MIXTURE CONTROLS. THE PLT SAID THAT WITH THE GEAR DOWN, FLAPS AT 15 DEG, AND THE RIGHT PROPELLER NOT FEATHERED, THE AIRPLANE WOULD NOT CLIMB. HE ELECTED TO LAND BETWEEN RWY 3 AND 8, ON A DIRT AREA. DURING LANDING, THE ACFT TURNED 180 DEG AND SLID 270 FT BEFORE COMING TO REST. A POST ACCIDENT INVESTIGATION BY AN FAA INSPECTOR REVEALED THAT THE RT FUEL SELECTOR WAS IN THE RT AUXILIARY FUEL TANK POSITION. THE RT ENGINE FUEL LINES CONTAINED A FEW DROPS OF FUEL. BOTH AUX TANKS WERE EMPTY AND NO FUEL WAS FOUND IN THE DETACHED RIGHT MAIN FUEL TANK.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN89LA033
- Event ID
- 20001213X27239
- Case number
- DEN89LA033
- 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: aec3cc9355c2efea2d612db2ab68140a4c66d3c6cbe6bd93f2af02c7d4fe551d; retrieved 2026-09-21T16:00:28.340Z.