MIA96LA131 · Cessna 210M
Cessna 210M · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Key Field / Meridian Regional Airport (MEI) to Olive Branch Airport (OLV)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA96LA131
- 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 210M
- 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
- N722PD
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Key Field / Meridian Regional Airport (MEI)To Olive Branch Airport (OLV), Olive Branch, MS
- 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
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Engine assembly, connecting rod › Failure, total
- Fluid, oil › Starvation
- Miscellaneous, engine › Previous damage
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, inadequate
- Other person › Unsafe/hazardous condition, not identified
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot, who had previously flown the airplane, reported that he had an oil leak and landed at Meridian. He found oil on the engine cowling behind the propeller, and thought the propeller oil seal was leaking. He added 2 quarts of oil, and took off on another flight. During climb-out, the oil pressure dropped below the red line, and the pilot returned to Meridian and landed after about a 10 to 15 minute flight. He did not inform the owners or mechanics that he had operated the engine with low oil pressure, while returning to the airport. Mechanics found a cracked oil cooler. They replaced the oil cooler and added about 8 quarts of oil to fill the engine to 9 quarts. Another pilot went to Meridian to ferry the plane back to the home base. He reported that during the climb after departure, the engine began to vibrate and loose power. He turned back, but did not have enough power to reach the airport. The engine seized, and during an emergency landing, the aircraft encountered a ditch and nosed over. Postcrash examination of the engine showed the #5 connecting rod had failed due to damage from oil starvation. The other connecting rod bearings also showed indications of oil starvation, and debris was found in the oil pump and filter.
Probable cause
previous engine damage; failure of the pilot of the previous flight to report to the operator and/or mechanics that the engine had been operated with low (or no) oil pressure; inadequate maintenance/inspection after most of the oil had leaked from the engine oil system during the previous flight; oil starvation; and subsequent failure of the #5 connecting rod. Factors relating to the accident were: the previous oil filter leak and loss of oil pressure.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA96LA131
- Event ID
- 20001208X05643
- Case number
- MIA96LA131
- 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: ae49208cc49ebfc660410bb90f592d2002db2ed6fab9fbd464bb31b5bba488f5; retrieved 2026-09-22T22:34:59.684Z.