SEA94LA157 · Cessna T210L
Cessna T210L · Accident: loss of engine power en route
From Fresno Yosemite International Airport (FAT) to Sunriver Airport (S21)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA94LA157
- 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
- N59187
- Operator
- Western Piper Sales
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Fresno Yosemite International Airport (FAT), Fresno, CATo Sunriver Airport (S21), Sunriver, OR
- 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
- En route · cruise
- 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 exhaustion
- 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
- Fluid, fuel › Exhaustion
- Fuel system, fuel quantity float/sensor › False indication
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
PRIOR TO THE CROSS COUNTRY FLIGHT, THE AIRPLANE HAD BEEN FUELED TO THE TOP, AND A 45 MIN TO 1 HR CHECK-OUT WAS FLOWN. THE FLIGHT THEN DEPARTED AT 0946. THE PILOT REPORTED THAT WITH FULL FUEL, THE AIRPLANE'S ENDURANCE WAS 5 HRS. THE DURATION OF THE FLIGHT WAS TO BE 3 HRS. THE PILOT NOTED THAT WITH 30 MIN REMAINING IN THE FLIGHT, THE FUEL GAUGES READ AROUND 1/4 FULL. SHORTLY THEREAFTER, THE ENGINE QUIT. THE AIRPLANE NOSED OVER IN SOFT TERRAIN DURING THE FORCED LANDING. DURING THE POST CRASH INSPECTION, A MINIMAL AMOUNT OF FUEL WAS FOUND IN THE FUEL SYSTEM. FOLLOWING THIS OCCURRENCE, FAA AD94-12-08 WAS ISSUED WHICH IN PART REQUIRES CHECKING THE FUEL GAUGE CALIBRATION OR TO PLACARD THE AIRPLANE TO INDICATE THAT THE FUEL GAUGES ARE NOT CALIBRATED AND THAT 'WITH FULL TANKS, MAXIMUM ENDURANCE IS 4 HRS FOR FLIGHT PLANNING.
Probable cause
FUEL EXHAUSTION DUE TO A FALSE INDICATION ON THE FUEL QUANTITY SENSOR.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA94LA157
- Event ID
- 20001206X01630
- Case number
- SEA94LA157
- 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: a4d466c51479a1f73717e92e867dcc075ecb2be0885f62e1998c488dc0bb5e46; retrieved 2026-09-21T22:35:53.821Z.