FTW97LA071 · Cessna 210A
Cessna 210A · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) while maneuvering
From Ponca City Regional Airport (PNC) to 00V
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's departure or destination. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW97LA071
- 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 210A
- 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
- N6680X
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route Possible conflict
- From Ponca City Regional Airport (PNC), Ponca City, OKTo 00V
- 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
- Maneuvering
- 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; Wire, transmission
- 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 › Fuel management, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While en route, the pilot learned of deteriorating weather at the destination (Greeley, CO) and diverted to Peyton, CO. After arriving at the new destination, the pilot circled the airport twice as he tried to activate the runway lights. He tried to activate the lights by keying the microphone with the radio set at 123.0 mHz. He then contacted the Colorado Springs control tower to confirm that he was using the proper frequency. Tower personnel assured him that 123.0 mHz was the correct frequency. However, the frequency had been changed to 122.7 mHz two months previously, and the change had been published in the Airport Facility Directory. As the pilot circled the airport a third time, the engine lost power. The pilot attempted to land on a road, but the airplane was substantially damaged when it struck a power line and roadside sign post. Salvage personnel drained 6 and 5 gallons of usable fuel from the left and right fuel tanks, respectively. Cessna's Pilot Safety and Warning Supplements cautioned pilots to avoid prolonged uncoordinated turns or slips, when the fuel level was less than 1/4 tank, so as not to inadvertently uncover fuel tank outlets.
Probable cause
the pilot's improper fuel management by failing to avoid a prolong uncoordinated turn or slip, which resulted in fuel starvation. Factors relating to the accident were: darkness, and the lack of (activated) runway lights.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW97LA071
- Event ID
- 20001208X07169
- Case number
- FTW97LA071
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1996-12-23.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 6c3963df9172c39f1562d24ccbfe87b6502644ad046aa880898d79cb16687cae; retrieved 2026-09-22T20:35:01.344Z.