LAX87LA133 · Cessna 310G
Aircraft Development Cessna 310G · Accident: hard landing
From Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport (PHX) to Sedona Airport (SEZ)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX87LA133
- 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 310G
- 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
- N161A
- Operator
- Aircraft Development
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport (PHX), Phoenix, AZTo Sedona Airport (SEZ), Sedona, AZ
- 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
- Landing · flare/touchdown
- 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
- Hard landing
- 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 › Proper descent rate, exceeded
- Pilot in command › Visual lookout, reduced
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE ACFT LANDED HARD ON RWY 3 WHILE ON A NIGHT VFR PLEASURE FLIGHT. THE PLT INDICATED THAT IT WAS A DARK NIGHT AND HE ELECTED TO FLY THE NDA-A IAP TO INSURE TERRAIN CLEARANCE WHILE LOOKING FOR THE RWY. WHILE ON FINAL APCH HE ACTIVATED THE MIRL ON THE TRAFFIC ADVISORY FREQ. THE PLT STATED, 'THE LIGHTS APPEARED TO BE DIM AND THE LANDING LIGHTS DID NOT ILLUMINATE THE RWY SURFACE.' THE PLT ADJUSTED THE ACFT PITCH ATTITUDE TO A SLIGHT NOSE UP AND ADDED POWER. THE PLT STATE THAT THE LANDING WAS 'SUFFICIENTLY HARD TO DAMAGE THE INTERNAL WING STRUCTURE OF THE ACFT.' THE PLT WAS REQUIRED TO WEAR CORRECTIVE LENSES FOR DISTANT VISION AND POSSESS CORRECTIVE LENSES FOR NEAR VISION. THE PLT'S NIGHT VISUAL ACUITY IS DEGRADED BY THE PHYSIOLOGICAL ASPECT OF HIS VISION. THIS ASPECT BEING THE NEED FOR CORRECTIVE LENSES. THE EFFECTS OF ALT, HYPOXIA, WILL HAVE AN IMPACT ON NIGHT VISION. DETERIORATION IN NIGHT VISION CAN OCCUR AT CABIN PRESSURE ALTS AS LOW AS 5,000 FT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX87LA133
- Event ID
- 20001213X30277
- Case number
- LAX87LA133
- 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 1987-02-17.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 50426eae731c91923e1b9793557f64ff8452bbaebabceea61a03c1810fac0a47; retrieved 2026-09-23T13:31:33.797Z.