LAX99FA161 · Cessna 210
Cessna 210 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) on approach
From Columbia Airport (O22) to Hayward Executive Airport (HWD)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX99FA161
- 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
- 2 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- 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 210
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 210
- 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
- N9512T
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Columbia Airport (O22), Columbia, CATo Hayward Executive Airport (HWD)
- 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 · VFR pattern base
- 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 (non-mechanical)
- 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 exhaustion; Wire, transmission; 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
- Fluid, fuel › Exhaustion
- Pilot in command › Fuel consumption calculations, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Fuel supply, not verified
- Pilot in command › Preflight planning/preparation, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While descending toward a right base entry to runway 28R, the pilot lost engine power after switching from the left to the right fuel tank. He was attempting to perform a forced landing in a residential area when the right wing collided with an electrical transmission line. The airplane subsequently collided with a tree and a portion of an apartment building. Both fuel tanks and their associated lines were intact, and no evidence of leakage was found around the fuel filler caps. Approximately 2.5 gallons of fuel was recovered from the left tank. There was no measurable fuel quantity in the right tank. The fuel selector valve handle was found on the right tank. The accuracy of the fuel gauges' calibration could not be determined. There was no evidence of a flight planning or fuel usage calculation found in the wreckage. The 2-bladed propeller exhibited damage that is consistent with a 'wind milling' propeller. The total quantity of fuel onboard at the time of the last departure is unknown. During postaccident testing, the engine was supplied with fuel and it started and ran for several minutes without discrepancies. The pilot stated that he has no recollection of the accident.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate preflight planning and his failure to verify fuel consumption during flight that resulted in fuel exhaustion and subsequent collision with obstacles and the ground.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX99FA161
- Event ID
- 20001205X00489
- Case number
- LAX99FA161
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1999-04-24.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 9cd52be2cd079386bfd631eea2b9ffae0acc806740ab7336007ea65f8a63f707; retrieved 2026-09-20T22:08:55.888Z.