FTW84FA045 · Cessna 310L
Cessna 310L · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water on approach
From Fort Worth Meacham International Airport (FTW) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW84FA045
- 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
- 2 · 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 310L
- 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
- N3256X
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Fort Worth Meacham International Airport (FTW), FT. WORTH, TXTo 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 · VFR pattern base
- 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 collision with terrain/water
- 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
- Pilot in command › Proper altitude, not maintained
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Bartlesville, OK, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE ACFT WAS OBSERVED AT 300-500 FT ON A DOWNWIND LEG OVER THE BRIGHTLY LIGHTED CITY. AFTER PASSING THE CITY THE ACFT ENTERED A VERY DARK & HILLY AREA IMMEDIATELY NORTH OF THE CITY. HE THEN MADE A LEFT TURN ONTO BASE LEG & REMAINED OVER UNLIGHTED & HILLY TERRAIN. SHORTLY THEREAFTER THE PLT CONTACTED THE TOWER & STATED HE WAS TURNING FROM BASE TO FINAL. ABOUT 20 SECS LATER THE TOWER OPERATOR OBSERVED A BRIGHT ORANGE FLASH ABOUT 3 MI NORTH OF THE ARPT & EAST OF AN EXTENDEDCENTERLINE OF RWY 17.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW84FA045
- Event ID
- 20001214X45048
- Case number
- FTW84FA045
- 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 1983-11-08.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 1ee8d5c18f98e0e8e950cf2c1f1fb5efb76dee1953b7b9032a6975e3ca3c756a; retrieved 2026-09-21T05:55:29.738Z.