CHI85FEX02 · Cessna 310C
Cessna 310C · Accident: partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From St. Louis Lambert International Airport (STL) to John Glenn Columbus International Airport (CMH)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI85FEX02
- 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 310C
- 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
- N1773H
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From St. Louis Lambert International Airport (STL), ST.LOUIS, MOTo John Glenn Columbus International Airport (CMH), Columbus, OH
- 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
- Aircraft performance, two or more engines › Undetermined
- Engine assembly, bearing › Failure, total
- Pilot in command › Propeller feathering, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
WHILE EN ROUTE, THE L ENG SUDDENLY LOST POWER & WOULD NOT RESTART, SO THE PLT FEATHERED THE L PROP. AFTER LETTING IT COOL APRX 5 MIN, HE TRIED RESTARTING IT AGAIN, BUT STILL WAS UNABLE. HE STATED HE THOUGHT HE THEN SECURED (FEATHERED) THE L ENG. THE PLT DIVERTED TOWARD INDIANAPOLIS. HE NOTED THAT THE R ENG BEGAN TO OVERHEAT & LOSE POWER. SUBSEQUENTLY, THE ACFT CRASH LANDED IN A CORN FLD AT NGT WITH THE LNDG GEAR RETRACTED & W/O LNDG LGTS (LGTS WOULD NOT EXTEND). AN EXAMREVEALED FUEL WAS REMAINING IN ALL TANKS. SHERIFF PSNL HAD MOVED THE FUEL SELECTORS WHEN THEY ARRIVED, SO THE SELECTOR POSITIONS WERE NOT VERIFIED. FOUND L THROTTLE FULL FWD, L MIX CTL MID-RANGE, L PROP CTL FULL LOW RPM (NOT FEATHERED). THE L PROP WAS NOT FEATHERED; BUT THE R PROP WAS FEATHERED (PLT SAID HE FEATHERED IT JUST BEFORE IMPACT). A TEARDOWN OF THE L ENG REVEALED THE #4 MAIN BEARING HAD FAILED; BOTTOM HALF OF OIL COOLER WAS 95% BLOCKED FROM SOFT METAL CONTAMIN- ATION, PROP GOV MOUNTING GASKET WAS 75% BLOCKED BY METAL CONTAMINATION; BUT THE L ENG CRANKSHAFT WOULD STILL TURN.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI85FEX02
- Event ID
- 20001214X36693
- Case number
- CHI85FEX02
- 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 1985-06-09.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 8ddeb2806bc53d4da954e3ab4a5ecc92a8a7d1e78ffcc5dda2ac5e8a4d29e112; retrieved 2026-09-21T17:16:10.014Z.