NYC87FAMS1 · Cessna 310
Buffalo Express Airlines Cessna 310 · Accident: missing aircraft
From Chautauqua County-Jamestown Airport (JHW) to North Buffalo Suburban Airport (0G0)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC87FAMS1
- 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
- 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
- N5462J
- Operator
- Buffalo Express Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Chautauqua County-Jamestown Airport (JHW), Jamestown, NYTo North Buffalo Suburban Airport (0G0), Lockport, 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
- Unknown
- 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
- Missing aircraft
- 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
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE CESSNA 310R DEPARTED THE AIRPORT ON A SVFR DEPARTURE. THE PILOT CANCELLED HIS CLEARANCE A FEW MINUTES LATER AND REPORTED IN VFR CONDITIONS. THE AIRCRAFT FAILED TO ARRIVE AT ITS DESTINATION. RADAR TRACKING SHOWED THE AIRCRAFT HEADING TOWARD LAKE ERIE. THE NEXT DAY SOME DEBRIS WAS FOUND ON THE LAKE SURFACE. THEY INCLUDED AN OIL SLICK, A SMALL PIECE OF ALUMINUM LATER IDENTIFIED AS BEING PART OF A TIP TANK AND A CURTAIN. A FEW DAYS LATER A LARGER PIECE OF ALUMINUM IDENTIFIED AS THE TOP COWL OF A CESSNA 310 WAS FOUND ON THE CANADIAN SIDE OF LAKE ERIE. THE OPERATOR IDENTIFIED THE PARTS AS BEING PAINTED LAKE THE MISSING AIRCRAFT AND THE CURTAINS IDENTICAL TO THOSE IN THE AIRCRAFT. NO MAJOR WRECKAGE OR SERIALIZED COMPONENTS HAVE BEEN FOUND AND THE REASON FOR THE AIRCRAFT NOT ARRIVING AT ITS DESTINATION IS UNKNOWN.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC87FAMS1
- Event ID
- 20001213X35423
- Case number
- NYC87FAMS1
- 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: 8bec9e5aea9d2440e491dece33e6c5c33838007ff8e494933819196d8459d963; retrieved 2026-09-21T04:16:33.108Z.