CEN13FA069 · Cessna 310B
Cessna 310B · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From Lakes of the North Airport (4Y4) to Lakes of the North Airport (4Y4)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN13FA069
- 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 310B
- 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
- N5419A
- Operator
- Crawford Roger W
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Lakes of the North Airport (4Y4), Mancelona, MITo Lakes of the North Airport (4Y4), Mancelona, 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
- Initial climb
- Defining eventThe 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft power plant
- Not determined › Not determined
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
A witness saw the airplane depart, however the accident was unobserved. The airplane was discovered 2 days later in a heavily wooded area about 1 mile from the departure end of the runway and about 3/4 mile to the right of the extended runway centerline. The airplane was almost inverted when it impacted the ground. Normal traffic pattern direction at the uncontrolled airport was to the left for this runway and the pilot was known to follow this requirement closely.
The accident site's location relative to the departure runway centerline and the airplane's nearly inverted attitude at impact were both consistent with the pilot's failure to maintain a minimum control airspeed and a subsequent loss of control roll to the right. The right fuel boost pump switch was found in the "on" position, whereas the left boost pump switch was found in the "off" position. Although the right fuel boost pump switch may have moved due to impact, the as-found position was consistent with the pilot attempting to correct for a loss of right engine power during takeoff.
Examination of the airframe, engine, and propeller did not reveal any anomalies associated with a preimpact failure or malfunction.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain control of the airplane after a loss of right engine power for reasons that could not be determined because postaccident examination revealed no preimpact malfunction or anomaly that would have precluded normal operation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN13FA069
- Event ID
- 20121123X41210
- Case number
- CEN13FA069
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
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: 0968d568ed88336b1c324d99682185c30212fc3a38cb1e9f493764d1370978e9; retrieved 2026-09-14T15:48:58.964Z.