NYC84FA054 · Cessna 310R
Cessna 310R · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water on approach
From Windsor Locks, CT to Buffalo Niagara International Airport (BUF)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC84FA054
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Unknown
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
- N87291
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Windsor Locks, CTTo 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 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
- Approach · IFR initial approach
- 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 › Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE ACFT COLLIDED WITH LAKE ERIE DURING ILS APPROACH TO RWY 05 AT BUFFALO, NY. THE ACFT HAD BEEN DESCENDED TO 3000 FT AND THE PLT REPORTED TURNING INBOUND FROM DUNKIRK VOR TO THE ILS. HE WAS CLEARED FOR THE APPROACH AND TOLD TO REPORT THE OUTER MARKER TO WHICH HE ACKNOWLEDGED. ABOUT ONE MINUTE LATER THE PLT REQUESTED THE SURFACE WINDS AND AFTER RECEIVING THEM ACKNOWLEDGED WITH AN 'OK'. THERE WERE NO FURTHER TRANSMISSIONS. ATTEMPTS TO RE-ESTABLISH COMMUNICATIONS WERE UNSUCCESSFUL. THE LAST RECORDED RADAR DATA ON THE ACFT AT 0408:42 SHOWED THE ACFT AT AN ALTITUDE OF 2500 FT ON A HEADING OF 55 DEGREES AT 154 KTS AND ABOUT 13 MILES FROM THE AIRPORT. SOME WRECKAGE ASSOCIATED WITH THE ACFT WAS LOCATED BY THE COAST GUARD ABOUT 2 HOURS LATER AT 12 MILES FROM THE ARPT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC84FA054
- Event ID
- 20001214X45393
- Case number
- NYC84FA054
- 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: 4fc63811c3228c3ffdc9c6fcedcd9c1eaa1c3d8f87cd968e453be3794e8e345b; retrieved 2026-09-18T14:29:18.110Z.