LAX97LA312 · Cessna T210J
Cessna T210J · Accident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From Sierra Vista Municipal Airport / Libby Army Air Field (FHU) to LA CHOLLA, AZ
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX97LA312
- 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 T210J
- 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
- N2280R
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Sierra Vista Municipal Airport / Libby Army Air Field (FHU), Sierra Vista, AZTo LA CHOLLA, AZ
- 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
- 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- 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
- Pilot in command › Became lost/disoriented
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated that he had a total electrical failure while en route to his destination. He decided to land at an uncontrolled airport that had a lighted runway instead of his usual destination. The landing was made uneventfully, but during the taxi to the ramp area the pilot misjudged his position on the unlighted taxiway and ran off the taxiway into a large drainage ditch. The ditch was not marked, nor was it mentioned in the airport remarks in the Airport Facility Directory or in the NOTAMS. The ditch was estimated to have a depth of approximately 3-4 feet below the surface of the runway, with an estimated slope in excess of 35 degrees. A postaccident examination of the electrical system did not identify the problem other than it was noted that one cell of the battery only charged to 50 percent. Examination of the taxiway found skid marks just prior to the aircraft departing the paved surface of the taxiway. The pilot told investigators that he was unfamiliar with the layout of this airport.
Probable cause
The pilot became lost/disoriented during his taxiing into the ramp area. Factors in the accident were the lack of taxiway lights, the pilot's lack of familiarity with the layout of the airport, and the airport operator's failure to either identify the drainage ditch in the airport/facility guide or to mark the ditch with signs.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX97LA312
- Event ID
- 20001208X08696
- Case number
- LAX97LA312
- 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 1997-08-29.
- API snapshot SHA-256: a4680cdb6e509583332f4395521cba8b59bc9384647b4dacea9166ac6bedc2ba; retrieved 2026-09-22T18:44:41.111Z.