NYC88FA051 · Cessna 310R
Cessna 310R · Accident: fire en route
From Sullivan County International Airport (MSV) to Buffalo Niagara International Airport (BUF)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC88FA051
- 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
- 1 · 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 310R
- 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
- N5052J
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Sullivan County International Airport (MSV), Monticello, NYTo Buffalo Niagara International Airport (BUF), Buffalo, NY
- 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
- Fire
- 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
- Fluid, fuel › Leak
- Fuel system, line fitting › Loose
- Fuselage, cabin › Fire
- Unknown › Maintenance, installation, improper
- Wing › Fire
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT MADE A ROUTINE IFR POSITION REPORT 12 MINUTES PRIOR TO THE ACCIDENT. WITNESSES OBSERVED AN 'ORANGE BALL' BEFORE THE CRASH. EVIDENCE AT THE CRASH SITE SHOWED INFLIGHT JETTISON OF THE PILOT'S EMERGENCY WINDOW, POSITIVE AERODYDNAMIC OVERLOAD SEPARATION OF THE HORIZONTAL STABILIZER AND ELEVATOR COMPONENTS, AND PARTIAL EXPENDITURE OF THE COCKPIT PORTABLE FIRE EXTINGUISHER. THERE WAS EVIDENCE OF INFLIGHT FIRE OUTBOARD OF THE RIGHT ENGINE WHERE A LOOSE B-NUT WAS FOUND ON A FUEL LINE. THE MOST EXTENSIVE FIRE DAMAGE WAS LOCATED IN THE RIGHT COCKPIT FLOORBOARD AREA. TOX EXAM OF THE PLT REVEALED A 10 PERCENT CARBON MONOXIDE LEVEL HOWEVER AN OXYGEN SYSTEM WAS INSTALLED ON THE ACFT WHICH MAY HAVE BEEN USED BY THE PLT DURING THE INFLT EMGCY.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC88FA051
- Event ID
- 20001213X32770
- Case number
- NYC88FA051
- 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 1987-12-07.
- API snapshot SHA-256: d4170def802f7374b288e98e4e4705d51a26e166445cf578c50aa9df7fc04b79; retrieved 2026-09-21T03:52:47.779Z.