CHI95LA137 · Cessna P210N
Cessna P210N · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Sioux Falls Regional Airport (FSD) to Rick Husband Amarillo International Airport (AMA)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI95LA137
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Cessna P210N
- 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
- N4614K
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Sioux Falls Regional Airport (FSD), Sioux Falls, SDTo Rick Husband Amarillo International Airport (AMA), Amarillo, TX
- 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 (mechanical failure)
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Minor
Cause areas
- Manufacturer › Material defect
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT REPORTED THAT HE WAS CRUISING AT 16,000 FEET MEAN SEA LEVEL WHEN HE HEARD A LOUD EXPLOSION IN THE ENGINE COMPARTMENT AND THE ENGINE LOST POWER. HE DESCENDED THROUGH INSTRUMENT METEOROLOGICAL CONDITIONS AND WHEN HE BROKE OUT OF THE CLOUDS, THE AIRPORT WAS NOT IN SIGHT AND HE MADE A FORCED LANDING IN A FIELD. A FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION (FAA) INSPECTOR WHO EXAMINED THE WRECKAGE REPORTED THAT THE PLANE WAS IN A WET WHEAT FIELD AND APPROXIMATELY 1000 FEET OF GROUND SCARS LED THROUGH A DITCH TO THE WRECKAGE. HE REPORTED NO EVIDENCE OF PREIMPACT AIRFRAME MALFUNCTION. DISASSEMBLY OF THE ENGINE REVEALED THE NUMBER ONE CONNECTING ROD FAILED DUE TO FATIGUE ORIGINATING FROM A DECARBURIZED LAYER ON THE SHANK OF THE ROD.
Probable cause
fatigue and subsequent catastrophic failure of the connecting rod originating from the decarburized area on the shank of the rod. Factors were the low cloud weather condition and the ditch.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI95LA137
- Event ID
- 20001207X03270
- Case number
- CHI95LA137
- 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: 863467b39203c0bfd0b31b9a1ab0282ccd8e204de6c463654d1bf6d390ef5e3a; retrieved 2026-09-21T13:20:26.518Z.