LAX94LA095 · Cessna T210L
Cessna T210L · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during takeoff
From Santa Maria Public Airport Captain G Allan Hancock Field (SMX) to Santa Maria Public Airport Captain G Allan Hancock Field (SMX)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX94LA095
- 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
- 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 T210L
- 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
- N5211V
- Operator
- Marc Rambod
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Santa Maria Public Airport Captain G Allan Hancock Field (SMX), Santa Maria, CATo Santa Maria Public Airport Captain G Allan Hancock Field (SMX)
- 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
- Takeoff · roll/run
- 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 on ground/water
- 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
- Dual student › Directional control, not maintained
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Supervision, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The aircraft owner was enrolled in a pilot refresher training course and said that the flight instructor had him land at the airstrip in order to practice soft field operations. The pilot noted that during the takeoff ground roll the aircraft veered left off the narrow runway and struck a metal fence post with the left horizontal stabilizer. The owner said the fence posts were only about 10 to 15 feet from the edge of the 40 foot wide runway. The flight instructor stated that, because the pilot applied power slowly, he looked down to see just exactly what power level was set. When he looked up again, the aircraft was heading off the runway to the left toward the fence posts. The instructor reported that he took control of the aircraft as it collided with a post, regained directional control, and completed the takeoff. After an inflight damage assessment, the instructor landed the aircraft at the airstrip.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S FAILURE TO MAINTAIN DIRECTIONAL CONTROL OF THE AIRCRAFT AND THE INSTRUCTOR'S INADEQUATE SUPERVISION OF THE FLIGHT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX94LA095
- Event ID
- 20001206X00641
- Case number
- LAX94LA095
- 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 1994-01-15.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 4d838f3aaab9db797895184aa8289b76c63164743e177c3acd2b16d2480202e1; retrieved 2026-09-23T01:23:34.504Z.