CHI95FA121 · Cessna P-210N
Cessna P-210N · Accident: loss of control in flight en route
From Flying Cloud Airport (FCM) to Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport (BJC)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI95FA121
- 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
- 3 · 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Cessna P-210N
- Aircraft type
- Cessna P-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
- N4738A
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Flying Cloud Airport (FCM), Eden Prairie, MNTo Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport (BJC), JEFFERSON CNTY, CO
- 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 · climb to 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 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Anti-ice/deice system, empennage › Deteriorated
- Anti-ice/deice system, empennage › Inoperative
- Company/operator management › Maintenance, replacement, not performed
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Pull-up, excessive
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE INSTRUMENT RATED PRIVATE PILOT DECLARED AN EMERGENCY DURING INITIAL CLIMBOUT IN ICING CONDITIONS. NO OTHER TRANSMISSIONS WERE RECEIVED AND THE AIRPLANE WAS LOST FROM ARTCC RADAR AT 7300 FEET MSL. THE LEFT WING AND BOTH HORIZONTAL STABILIZERS SEPARATED IN FLIGHT, EXHIBITING PERMANENT DEFORMATION SUPPORTING POSITIVE OVERLOAD (STABILIZERS DEFLECTED DOWN, MAIN WINGS DEFLECTED UP). ALL THREE EMPENNAGE DEICE BOOTS WERE FOUND TO HAVE NUMEROUS PATCHES, WHICH WOULD NOT HOLD NORMAL SYSTEM PRESSURE. THE SYSTEM REQUIRED THE EMPENNAGE TO HOLD PRESSURE BEFORE IT WOULD CYCLE TO THE MAIN WINGS. REPLACEMENT OF THE BOOTS HAD BEEN RECOMMENDED TO THE OWNERS 3 MONTHS PRIOR. WITNESSES WHO ARRIVED ON SCENE IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE ACCIDENT DESCRIBED ICE ON THE WINGS AND BOOTS.
Probable cause
the failure to replace the deteriorated deicing boots, and the failure of the boots to operate when the airplane encountered icing condition. An additional causes were the pilot's failure to maintain adequate airspeed and the excessive pullup performed by the pilot during the uncontrolled descent.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI95FA121
- Event ID
- 20001207X03246
- Case number
- CHI95FA121
- 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: 183dc48340373db2f98c48d14a5aef8e2fa72c52badcf699cf923ad2019aff1a; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:49:18.894Z.