CHI08FA055 · Cessna 310R
Cessna 310R · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From South Bend International Airport (SBN) to Cherry Capital Airport (TVC)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI08FA055
- 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 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
- N37249
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From South Bend International Airport (SBN), South Bend, INTo Cherry Capital Airport (TVC), Traverse City, MI
- 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
- 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
- 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
- Tree(s)
- 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 › Aircraft control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Proper glidepath, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane was on an instrument flight rules flight plan and had been cleared for an instrument landing system approach to the destination airport. Radar data showed that during the final approach the airplane's position remained within the lateral bounds of the localizer beam, but varied to the left and right of the center of the beam. The altitude data showed that the airplane's descent profile was not stabilized and remained above the upper bound of the glideslope beam for about 2 minutes prior to the end of the data. The final descent rate was calculated to be about 1,500 feet per minute and the airspeed was calculated to be about 77 knots. No preimpact deficiencies were found with respect to the airplane, its engines, or systems. The weather conditions present at the time included a 1,700-foot overcast ceiling and icing conditions. Air traffic control communications showed that the pilot was made aware of the icing conditions.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain a proper glidepath during the instrument approach, which led to his loss of control and subsequent impact with trees and terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI08FA055
- Event ID
- 20080108X00030
- Case number
- CHI08FA055
- 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: ee0a0fcaca94fe4450234f179d42694149e2b09540f28a7b7b0d9426d3da982e; retrieved 2026-09-20T16:02:36.729Z.