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SEA98LA099 · Cessna T210M

15 Jun 1998 · La Pine, OR, United States

Cessna T210M · Accident: loss of engine power en route

From Charles M. Schulz Sonoma County Airport (STS) to S07 · Bend, OR

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Event

NTSB case
SEA98LA099
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 T210M

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
N22CT
Operator
Unknown
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From Charles M. Schulz Sonoma County Airport (STS), Santa Rosa, CATo S07 · Bend, OR
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 · cruise
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
  • Reason for occurrence undetermined

Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.

NTSB narrative

The pilot stated that while in cruise flight at 10,500 feet MSL, the engine slowly lost power and then quit approximately two hours after takeoff, shortly after switching from the right fuel tank to the left fuel tank. She said she used the emergency check list, switched tanks, and attempted to restart the engine on both the left and right tanks, without success. She provided a fueling invoice for 71.2 gallons of fuel, with 39.6 in the right tank and 31.6 in the left tank, for refueling accomplished on the day before the accident. FAA inspectors found the fuel system to be uncompromised, except for the tanks, which had been breached during the accident. The left side sump tank contained approximately 98 ounces of fuel; the right sump tank appeared to be empty. The fuel injection spider contained fuel and the screen was clean. The firewall fuel strainer contained approximately 2 ounces of fuel and its screen was clean. At the time of inspection, the fuel totalizer was energized and gave a momentary reading of 41.3 gallons used. No anomalies were found during the post-accident investigation that would preclude normal operation of the engine.

Probable cause

Fuel starvation for undetermined reasons.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record SEA98LA099
Event ID
20001211X10429
Case number
SEA98LA099
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 1998-06-16.
  • API snapshot SHA-256: 7d9dd2b6f74ace71e3e8488e1749ad6dabd766c01b402b5b52f52aca262283d1; retrieved 2026-09-21T20:48:51.187Z.