MIA96LA193 · Cessna 210L
Cessna 210L · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) on approach
From Albert Whitted Airport (SPG) to Page Field (FMY)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA96LA193
- 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 210L
- 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
- N1623X
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Albert Whitted Airport (SPG), ST PETERSBURG, FLTo Page Field (FMY)
- 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 final
- 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 exhaustion
- 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 › Exhaustion
- Fluid, fuel › Siphoning
- Fuel system, cap › Missing
- Pilot in command › Aircraft preflight, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
On final approach, the airplane's engine lost power, and a forced landing was made in a river about 2.5 miles from the runway. The recovery crew that had retrieved the airplane from the river, reported that they 'drained no fuel' from the airplane's fuel tanks. The only fluid that the recovery crew found in the fuel tanks was 'river water.' When the airplane was lifted from the river, the left wing fuel cap was missing, and the fuel selector valve was found positioned to the 'left' wing tank. The PIC (pilot-in-command) stated that he checked the fuel caps and fuel level during preflight inspection. However, the copilot indicated that the fuel level and caps were not adequately checked during the preflight, because 'there was nothing available for them to use to reach the top of the aircraft wing.' There were no other breaches found throughout the fuel system. The airplane's engine was operationally checked, and no discrepancies were found during the test run.
Probable cause
failure of the pilot (PIC) to ensure that an adequate preflight inspection was performed; a missing (or loose) fuel cap on the left wing; probable fuel siphoning; and fuel exhaustion, which resulted in a loss of engine power and a subsequent forced landing (ditching) in a river.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA96LA193
- Event ID
- 20001208X06323
- Case number
- MIA96LA193
- 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: c985fc6b887999002d69ad9faba70d67415eecdb8aa1b6826ac1aecbf5cd7e89; retrieved 2026-09-22T21:45:20.806Z.