LAX01FA152 · Cessna 310F
Cessna 310F · Accident: loss of control in flight en route
From Monterey Regional Airport (MRY) to Carson Airport (CXP)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX01FA152
- 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
- Unknown
- 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 310F
- 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
- N5834X
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Monterey Regional Airport (MRY), Monterey, CATo Carson Airport (CXP), Carson City, NV
- 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 · climb to 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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
During an instrument departure climbout to VFR conditions on top, the airplane impacted a coastal mountain slope in near vertical, diving flight. Radar data showed that the initial climbout was on course; however, upon reaching the initial navigational fix, the airplane ceased climbing and turned in the wrong direction toward rising terrain. The pilot reported no difficulty and his voice was calm. The engine sound, audible in the background of the communication, was smooth and synchronized. The air traffic controller issued a terrain warning and instructed the pilot to reverse course immediately if not in VFR conditions. In the next 14 seconds the aircraft climbed 400 feet and then disappeared from radar. The airplane's instruments and switches were destroyed by impact.
Probable cause
The in-flight loss of control of the airplane in instrument meteorological conditions for undetermined reasons.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX01FA152
- Event ID
- 20010507X00898
- Case number
- LAX01FA152
- 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: a52dd4d89cc1e4bafaab5da2932d7cc77453527c82b16d049d02576cad18c6b7; retrieved 2026-09-20T20:35:09.063Z.