IAD02LA022 · Cessna 310H
Cessna 310H · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Asheville Regional Airport (AVL) to Laurence G Hanscom Field (BED)
Event
- NTSB case
- IAD02LA022
- 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
- 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 310H
- 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
- N10MS
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Asheville Regional Airport (AVL), Asheville, NCTo Laurence G Hanscom Field (BED), Bedford, MA
- 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 · 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
- Total loss of engine power (mechanical 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
- Pilot in command › Compensation for wind conditions, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While in cruise flight, the airplane's left engine lost total power. The pilot elected to perform a single-engine landing at the nearest airport, on runway 02. During the landing flare, a gust of wind forced the left wing down and it struck the runway. The airplane continued off the left side of the runway and came to rest in the grass area. The winds reported by an air traffic controller from an airport 30 miles to the southwest, were from 330 degrees at 6 knots, gusting to 22 knots. The airport where the winds were reported from had six runways, one of which was oriented on a heading of 340 degrees. Examination of the engine revealed that the alternate air valve had broken off and was observed embedded in the fuel injector servo. According to the Cessna 310H Pilot Operating Handbook, the last item under the Engine Failure During Flight Checklist, was to land at the nearest suitable airport. The pilot reported 5,117 hours of total flight experience, 10 of which were in make and model. He additionally reported 38 hours of multi-engine flight experience.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate compensation for the gusty wind conditions. Factors in the accident were the gusty wind conditions and the total loss of left engine power due to the alternate air valve becoming disconnected and embedded in the fuel injector servo.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record IAD02LA022
- Event ID
- 20020103X00019
- Case number
- IAD02LA022
- 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, coordinates. 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: 565d2105074177a9db7f357a73f5dbbca306867c97ef142b9512f02686384d77; retrieved 2026-09-22T11:13:07.337Z.