Exec Air Cessna 310 accident
Cessna 310 · Accident: loss of engine power during takeoff
From Sidney - Richland Regional Airport (SDY) to Helena Regional Airport (HLN)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA02LA019
- 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
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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 310
- 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
- N5043J
- Operator
- Exec Air
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Sidney - Richland Regional Airport (SDY), Sidney, MTTo Helena Regional Airport (HLN), Helena, MT
- 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
- Takeoff · roll/run
- 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 engine power
- 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
- Pilot in command › Directional control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Procedures/directives, improper
- Pilot in command › Remedial action, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During the takeoff roll, with the nose wheel elevated and both main wheels still on the runway surface, the aircraft experienced a complete loss of power on the right engine. As the pilot initiated the abort sequence, instead of pulling both throttles to the full idle position, he "...retarded the left power lever partially." This action did not sufficiently alleviate the asymmetrical thrust in time for the pilot to keep the aircraft aligned with the runway, and it subsequently departed the right side of the runway surface. As it left the runway at a 30 degree angle and entered terrain partially covered by snow, the pilot noticed the aircraft was heading toward a fence on the airport perimeter. Instead of executing the published abort procedure, he pushed the left power lever back up to the full power position. According to the pilot, he did this in order to store what energy he still had, so that he could raise the nose of the aircraft prior to hitting the fence, "...thereby impacting the fence with the bottom of the aircraft." Post accident measurements determined that the aircraft had traveled 425 feet from where it entered the runway to where it departed the side of the runway surface. It traveled another 670 feet prior to impacting the fence. After breaking off six of the fence support poles, and bending four others over, it traveled another 196 feet before coming to a stop. A post-accident inspection of the aircraft and its systems did not reveal any malfunctions or anomalies that would have contributed to a loss of engine power.
Probable cause
The pilot's improper abort procedure and inadequate remedial action, leading to a loss of directional control after losing power in one engine during the takeoff roll. Factors include the loss of power from one engine, and a fence around the perimeter of the airport.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA02LA019
- Event ID
- 20011221X02434
- Case number
- SEA02LA019
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (5)
- 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: 6471c9f16ce3f5e21e72b0083a57b938391530e7adec2f42671d4f766d4d9546; retrieved 2026-09-18T16:07:43.851Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N5043J; the operator shown is the name the NTSB records it doing business as.