ATL04LA123 · Cessna 310
Cessna 310 · Accident: loss of engine power on approach
From DeKalb Peachtree Airport (KPDK) to Grand Strand Airport (KCRE)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL04LA123
- 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
- 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
- N361Z
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From DeKalb Peachtree Airport (KPDK), Chamblee, GATo Grand Strand Airport (KCRE), N. Myrtle Beach, SC
- 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
- Approach · IFR final 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
- Loss of engine power
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Fuel starvation
- 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 › In-flight planning/decision, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Preflight planning/preparation, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated approximately four miles from the runway, the right engine began to sputter. He stated that he attempted to restart it, and the right engine briefly produced power and then sputtered again. The pilot stated that he feathered the right propeller and "continued the approach single engine." The pilot stated that "as the approach progressed, [he] realized that [the airplane] could not maintain the glide slope... or clear a tree line ahead." The pilot stated that he committed to ditching the airplane in the waterway to the right, so he retracted the landing gear, and the airplane touched down tail low. The airplane ditched in the intracoastal waterway two miles short of runway 23 and sank in 12-20 feet of water. The post-accident examination of the airplane revealed the airframe was intact. Fuel system continuity was established from the tip tanks to the fuel strainer, and the fuel strainer and the fuel pump were intact and free of debris. When water was displaced from the engine, fuel system, and magnetos, both engines started and produced power at idle and high RPM settings. No anomalies were observed during the engine run. The pilot of a flight in the airplane on the previous day stated that upon returning to DeKalb-Peachtree Airport, there were about 58-60 gallons of fuel on board the airplane. He further stated that the airplane was not refueled that evening or prior to the accident flight on May 30, 2004. According to the 1955 Cessna 310 owner's manual, the main fuel wingtip fuel tanks have a capacity of 102 gallons, of which 100 gallons are usable fuel and two gallons are unusable.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate preflight/planning and his in-flight decision which resulted in the loss of power in one engine due to fuel starvation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL04LA123
- Event ID
- 20040615X00789
- Case number
- ATL04LA123
- 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: ad4391a990368d8c572b52417406c21918d172ab74c13067e1dfb2d80905d58a; retrieved 2026-09-20T18:27:52.751Z.