FTW97LA102 · Cessna 210-5
Cessna 210-5 · Accident: loss of engine power on approach
From C David Campbell Field Corsicana Municipal Airport (CRS) to Lea County Regional Airport (HOB)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW97LA102
- 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 210-5
- 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
- N1866Z
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From C David Campbell Field Corsicana Municipal Airport (CRS), Corsicana, TXTo Lea County Regional Airport (HOB)
- 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 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
- Loss of engine power
- 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
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
After about 70 minutes of cross country flight, the engine quit. After noticing that the left fuel tank gauge was reading 'empty', the pilot switched to the right tank, restarted the engine and proceeded to his destination. After about another 90 minutes of uneventful flight, while on final approach to land, the engine quit again and the pilot executed a forced landing. Examination of the aircraft revealed that the right wing fuel tank was empty and the left wing tank was found to contain approximately 9 gallons of fuel. Fuel tank structural integrity was not compromised and there were no noticeable fuel stains around the engine compartment or on the belly skin of the aircraft. The fuel selector valve was found in the right tank position and the fuel return line fitting was found separated from the engine firewall. Inspection of the threads on both the male and female connection point of fitting revealed deformations. The pilot reported that the aircraft was topped off with 84 gallons of fuel prior to departure, and with a burn rate of 14.5-15.5 gallons per hour he should have had about 37 gallons of fuel left at his destination (348 nautical miles distance traveled). He reported no fuel odors in flight.
Probable cause
The loss of engine power due to fuel starvation for undetermined reasons. A factor was the pilot's continued flight after a fuel consumption anomaly was encountered.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW97LA102
- Event ID
- 20001208X07401
- Case number
- FTW97LA102
- 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: 26beb1c93606cb6906fea1a66cdb0944f7faa7e2793024ad23ce7239c231aa8a; retrieved 2026-09-21T12:13:49.730Z.