New Mexico Flying Service Cessna T210L accident
Cessna T210L · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Four Corners Regional Airport (FMN) to Windy Plains Airport (5CO0)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW97LA142
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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
- N613CW
- Operator
- New Mexico Flying Service
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Four Corners Regional Airport (FMN), Farmington, NMTo Windy Plains Airport (5CO0), CO
- 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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 · descent
- 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
- Pilot in command › Planning/decision, improper
- Pilot in command › Refueling, not performed
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Durango, CO, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
According to the pilot, he departed with 48 gallons of fuel on board to fly a 223 NM trip, which included 4 full stops. The pilot reported that he believed that he had sufficient fuel to complete the trip, and that he checked the fuel with a company approved calibrated measuring device at each stop. He further stated that as he was nearing his destination, the 'engine quit,' and he performed a forced landing in a 'rugged sage brush field.' Personnel involved in the airplane recovery process reported that they found 'no fuel in the airplane, nor was there any evidence of fuel spillage or leakage on the ground at the scene.' A representative of the airplane's manufacturer calculated that the trip, with 4 full stops, required approximately 56 gallons of fuel to complete.
Probable cause
the pilot's improper planning/decision, and failure to ensure there was sufficient fuel aboard for the flight, which resulted in fuel exhaustion and loss of engine power. A factor relating to the accident was: the lack of suitable terrain for a successful forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW97LA142
- Event ID
- 20001208X07547
- Case number
- FTW97LA142
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (5)
- 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: fece610e241cb0a250c3d581ed619640f44b44b289d491d3397c5d62d909ce45; retrieved 2026-09-18T17:40:44.368Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N613CW; the operator shown is the name the NTSB records it doing business as.