ATL94LA169 · Cessna T210M
Cessna T210M · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From St Simons Island Airport (SSI) to Henry Tift Myers Airport (TMA)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL94LA169
- 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 T210M
- 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
- N761GQ
- Operator
- Simms, John L. · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From St Simons Island Airport (SSI), Brunswick, GATo Henry Tift Myers Airport (TMA), Tifton, GA
- 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
- Total loss of engine power (non-mechanical)
- 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
- Engine assembly, piston › Burned
- Pilot in command › Mixture, improper use of
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
WHILE IN CRUISE FLIGHT, THE ENGINE OIL PRESSURE DECREASED AND THE OIL TEMPERATURE INCREASED. THE ENGINE LOST POWER RAPIDLY, AND QUIT. A FORCED LANDING WAS MADE TO A FOUR LANE HIGHWAY. THE PILOT SAID HE MANEUVERED THE AIRPLANE TO AVOID A COLLISION WITH ELECTRICAL POWER LINES AND VEHICLES. THE LANDING GEAR WAS NOT EXTENDED TO AVOID CATCHING ON POWER LINES. AFTER TOUCHDOWN ON THE HIGHWAY, A VEHICLE BACKED INTO THE ROAD AND WAS STRUCK BY THE RIGHT WING TIP. POST ACCIDENT EXAMINATION OF THE ENGINE REVEALED THAT THE NUMBER 2 PISTON EXHIBITED SIGNS OF PRE-IGNITION /DETONATION, I.E. A HOLE WAS BURNED IN THE PISTON. TESTING OF THE ENGINE FUEL SYSTEM DEMONSTRATED THAT IT WAS CAPABLE OF PROVIDING REQUIRED FUEL TO THE ENGINE. THE PILOT REPORTED THAT THE AIRPLANE WAS FULL OF 100LL FUEL WHEN THE FLIGHT DEPARTED. EXCESSIVE FUEL LEANING, DURING IMPROPER USAGE OF THE MIXTURE CONTROL, WILL RESULT IN ENGINE DETONATION.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S EXCESSIVE FUEL LEANING DURING IMPROPER USE OF THE MIXTURE CONTROL, WHICH RESULTED IN PRE-IGNITION/DETONATION AND A TOTAL LOSS OF ENGINE POWER. FACTORS WERE THE ELECTRICAL WIRES AND VEHICLES.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL94LA169
- Event ID
- 20001206X02174
- Case number
- ATL94LA169
- 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: 904cbb5d5681adcb07056dfcef250750c7186a1331d6baf06a7770e8e7263b1f; retrieved 2026-09-23T00:41:40.397Z.