CHI84LA055 · Cessna 310L
Cessna 310L · Accident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From Dupage Airport (DPA) to Anderson Municipal Darlington Field (AID)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI84LA055
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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 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
- N2222F
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Dupage Airport (DPA), West Chicago, ILTo Anderson Municipal Darlington Field (AID), Anderson, IN
- 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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
- Airframe, component or system 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
- Electrical system, alternator › Shorted
- Electrical system, electric wiring › Burned
- Electrical system, electric wiring › Loose
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PLT WAS UNABLE TO START THE ENG WITH THE BATTERIES & MADE A START BY USING AN APU. ABOUT 10 MIN AFTER TAKING OFF, HE NOTICED AN OFF FLAG ON THE HSI. A FURTHER CHECK WAS MADE & HE DISCOVERED THE LEFT ALTERNATOR WAS NOT FUNCTIONING. HE THEN CHECKED THE CIRCUIT BREAKER PANEL, BY FEEL, & PUSHED IN A BREAKER. AT THAT TIME, TOTAL ELECTRICAL FAILURE OCCURRED. AFTER FLYING ABOUT 40 MIN BY USING PARTIAL PANEL PROCEDURES. HE DESCENDED THRU IFR CONDITIONS, SAW A DESERTED/SNOW COVERED STREET & DECIDED TO LAND. HOWEVER, BEFORE DESCENDING, THE ACFT HAD 'PICKED UP SOME ICE,' & WITH NO PITOT HEAT, THE PITOT HEAT TUBE HAD ICED OVER, MAKING THE AIRSPEED INDICATOR INOP. ALSO, WITH ELECTRICAL FAILURE, THE PLT WAS UNABLE TO EXTEND THE FLAPS. WHILE LANDING, THE PLT WAS UNABLE TO STOP BEFORE REACHING THE END OF THE SNOW COVERED STREET & THE ACFT HIT A DIRT BANK & WAS DAMAGED. A EXAM REVEALED A LOOSE CONNECTION ON THE LEFT ALTERATOR, SHORTING ACROSS THE BRUSH LEADS. THE 'Y' CONNECTION ON THE RIGHT ALTERNATOR WAS BURNT/2 WIRES BURNT OFF.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI84LA055
- Event ID
- 20001214X45244
- Case number
- CHI84LA055
- 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: 7d1a131bc0fcc2ed9b1f340384de5bf4be9b924797fa74675698271c7df2612f; retrieved 2026-09-18T20:49:14.838Z.