DEN89LA109 · Cessna 310E
Cessna 310E · Accident: in flight encounter with weather on approach
From Grand Junction Regional Airport (GJT) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN89LA109
- 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 310E
- 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
- N4127G
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Grand Junction Regional Airport (GJT), Grand Junction, COTo 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 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
- 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
- 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 › Compensation for wind conditions, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Flare, misjudged
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PRIVATE PLT/A&P MECHANIC WAS FERRYING AN ACFT TO HIS FBO TO PERFORM AN ANNUAL INSPECTION. DURING FINAL APPROACH TO RWY 32, A 3,300 X 50 FT, ASPHALT RWY, THE PLT SAID HE ENCOUNTERED STRONG TURBULENCE. THE ACFT TOUCHED DOWN 200 FT SHORT OF THE RWY, ON A PAVED HIGHWAY. THE ACFT SLID ONTO THE RWY AND MADE A SLOW LEFT TURN, COMING TO REST 300 FEET LEFT OF THE RWY CENTERLINE, WITH COMPLETE LANDING GEAR COLLAPSE. A POST ACCIDENT INSPECTION SHOWED EVIDENCE THAT THE LEFT TIRE TOUCHED DOWN HARD, AND THE LEFT STRUT MADE SCRAPE MARKS WITHIN 5 FT. THE ACFT BOUNCED BACK INTO THE AIR AND AT THE NEXT TOUCHDOWN, THE LEFT PROPELLER MADE STRIKE MARKS. THE PILOT SAID HE THOUGHT THE ACFT HAD HIT A LOW LEVEL WIND SHEAR ON FINAL. HE ALSO SAID HE THOUGHT THE LEFT AXLE BROKE OFF DUE TO FATIGUE. AN FAA AIRWORTHINESS INSPECTOR EXAMINED THE AXLE AND STATED THAT HE DISCOVERED NO EVIDENCE OF PRE-EXISTING CRACKS OR FATIGUE.
Probable cause
INADEQUATE COMPENSATION FOR THE WIND CONDITIONS BY THE PILOT, RESULTING IN A LOSS OF CONTROL OF FINAL APPROACH. CONTRIBUTING TO THE ACCIDENT WAS THE DOWNDRAFT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN89LA109
- Event ID
- 20001213X28083
- Case number
- DEN89LA109
- 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: 9663cbc36db5125576e15eea5a027baad25b56d51a2cf77ae504bed079ad24fa; retrieved 2026-09-23T07:41:47.646Z.