LAX95LA207 · Cessna T210N
Cessna T210N · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Crater Lake-Klamath Regional Airport (LMT) to O61 · Cameron Park, CA
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX95LA207
- 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 T210N
- 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
- N5436Y
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Crater Lake-Klamath Regional Airport (LMT), Klamath Falls, ORTo O61 · Cameron Park, CA
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Engine assembly, connecting rod bolt › Fatigue
- Engine assembly, connecting rod bolt › Undertorqued
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, installation, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
AFTER LEVELING OFF AT CRUISE, THE ENGINE STARTED RUNNING ROUGH. A 2-INCH REDUCTION IN MANIFOLD PRESSURE RESULTED IN A METALLIC SOUND. ANOTHER 2-INCH REDUCTION RESULTED IN A LOUDER METALLIC SOUND. THE MANIFOLD PRESSURE THEN FELL TO 20 INCHES, THE OIL PRESSURE DROPPED TO ZERO, AND OIL BEGAN TO SPLATTER ON THE WINDSCREEN. A FORCED LANDING WAS MADE IN A LAVA FIELD SURROUNDED BY TREES. AFTER TOUCHING DOWN THE AIRCRAFT SLID AND NOSED OVER ON ITS BACK. POSTACCIDENT INSPECTION REVEALED THAT THE NO. 2 LOWER CONNECTING ROD BOLT HAD FRACTURED. MEASUREMENTS PERFORMED BY THE MANUFACTURER INDICATED THE ROD BOLT HAD BEEN UNDERTORQUED. THE ENGINE WAS LAST OVERHAULED 509 HOURS PRIOR TO THE ACCIDENT.
Probable cause
Fatigue failure of the No. 2 lower connecting rod bolt as a result of improper torque during the last engine overhaul.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX95LA207
- Event ID
- 20001207X03741
- Case number
- LAX95LA207
- 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: e2f2f765ed598b3a9a08de9173ebc0e22d0885ee39a8d6f5c89b43146af17838; retrieved 2026-09-21T13:14:21.562Z.