MKC89LA072 · Cessna 310
Cessna 310 · Accident: partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Eppley Airfield (OMA) to Aurora Municipal Airport (ARR)
Event
- NTSB case
- MKC89LA072
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Cessna 310
- 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
- N98934
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Eppley Airfield (OMA), Omaha, NETo Aurora Municipal Airport (ARR), Aurora, IL
- 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
- Partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure)
- 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
- Engine assembly, crankshaft › Failure, total
- Pilot in command › Proper glidepath, exceeded
- Pilot in command › Visual lookout, restricted
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Cedar Rapids, IA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT SAID THAT AFTER ABOUT 15 TO 20 MINUTES INTO A PERSONAL IFR CROSS COUNTRY FLIGHT, THE LEFT ENGINE BEGAN TO VIBRATE AND LOSE POWER. HE SHUT THE ENGINE DOWN, CONTACTED DES MOINES APPROACH FOR VECTORS TO THE ARPT. THE DSM WEATHER WAS BELOW MINIMUM SO VECTORS WERE GIVEN TO THE CEDAR RAPIDS ARPT. DURING THE APPROACH TO RUNWAY 9 AN AREA OF HEAVY RAIN WAS ENCOUNTERED CAUSING POOR VISIBILITY. THE ACFT LANDED SHORT OF THE RUNWAY STRIKING THE APPROACH LIGHTS AND SUBSTANTIALLY DAMAGING THE ACFT. POST ACCIDENT LEFT ENGINE TEARDOWN REVEALED A BROKE CRANKSHAFT.
Probable cause
THE PROPER TOUCHDOWN POINT WAS NOT ATTAINED BY THE PILOT AND THE CRANKSHAFT FAILURE ON ONE ENGINE. CONTRIBUTING TO THE ACCIDENT WERE THE WEATHER CONDITIONS AND THE APPROACH LIGHTS WHICH WERE CONTACTED.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MKC89LA072
- Event ID
- 20001213X27964
- Case number
- MKC89LA072
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1989-03-04.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 6bc8ab86ecdfd9f79f579f541d1607d17032a0b96a9c72e1737c59ea9d51159b; retrieved 2026-09-23T07:50:22.815Z.