FTW96LA328 · Cessna T210L
Cessna T210L · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) on approach
From Dallas Executive Airport (RBD) to Santa Fe Municipal Airport (SAF)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW96LA328
- 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 T210L
- 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
- N210RE
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Dallas Executive Airport (RBD), Dallas, TXTo Santa Fe Municipal Airport (SAF)
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern turn to base
- 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)
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Fuel starvation
- 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
- Fluid, fuel › Starvation
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, improper
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Santa Fe, NM, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
After a cross country flight of 3 hours and 25 minutes, the airplane was on the base leg for landing when the engine lost power. During the ensuing forced landing on a road, the left wing struck a road sign, and the airplane departed the road and collided with a wire fence. About 2 hours and 45 minutes into the flight, the pilot noted that the left fuel quantity indicator was indicating a low fuel quantity. The pilot stated that he discounted the low fuel quantity indication since he had visually confirmed both tanks were full prior to departure, and he elected to continue the flight. The fuel selector was found positioned on the right tank, and 1 quart of fuel was drained from the right tank. The left fuel tank was ruptured; the fuel quantity could not be determined. No evidence of fuel leakage was found on the lower or upper wing surfaces, the aircraft belly, or inside the engine compartment. Six months prior to the accident, the fuel gauges had been calibrated to ensure that they indicated empty when the fuel tanks were empty.
Probable cause
the pilot's improper decision to continue the flight after noting the low fuel quantity indication, which resulted in fuel starvation before reaching the airport. A factor was the lack of suitable terrain for the forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW96LA328
- Event ID
- 20001208X06246
- Case number
- FTW96LA328
- 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: 989b60c937dbf366318d2b859ed7825213579e584723bb1c64a36d371dfb1c16; retrieved 2026-09-22T21:46:48.124Z.