ATL92LA112 · Cessna 210F
Cessna 210F · Accident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From Princeton Airport (39N) to Columbia Metropolitan Airport (CAE)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL92LA112
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Cessna 210F
- 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
- N5811F
- Operator
- Stanton, Mark L. · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Princeton Airport (39N), Princeton, NJTo Columbia Metropolitan Airport (CAE), Columbia, SC
- 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
- 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 › Directional control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Emergency procedure, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Equipment, other, not used
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
DURING CRUISE FLIGHT IN INSTRUMENT METEOROLOGICAL CONDITIONS, TOTAL ELECTRICAL POWER WAS LOST. THE PILOT FLEW EAST UNTIL HE BELIEVED HE WAS OVER WATER & DESCENDED BELOW THE OVERCAST. HE FLEW BACK TO DRY LAND AND EVENTUALLY ELECTED TO LAND ON A ROAD, WHEN THE CEILING CONTINUED TO LOWER. THE AIRPLANE LANDED FAST, WITH THE FLAPS RETRACTED, ON A HIGHWAY. HE SAID HE LANDED TO ONE SIDE OF THE ROAD BECAUSE OF ELECTRICAL WIRES ON THE OPPOSITE SIDE. THE RIGHT WHEEL DROPPED OFF OF THE PAVEMENT AND THE AIRPLANE VEERED INTO A DITCH BESIDE THE ROAD. INVESTIGATION REVEALED THAT THE ALTERNATOR BELT HAD SEPARATED. AN AMMETER IS INSTALLED ON THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE INSTRUMENT PANEL, & WAS FOUND TO BE OPERABLE AFTER THE ACCIDENT. THE OWNER'S MANUAL, BEFORE LANDING CHECKLIST, STATES THAT THE FLAPS SHOULD BE LOWERED, & A SPEED OF 75-85 MPH USED DURING LANDING.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S INADEQUATE EMERGENCY PROCEDURES, IN THAT HE FAILED TO NOTE THE DISCHARGE OF ELECTRICAL POWER ON THE AMMETER, AND HIS LOSS OF DIRECTIONAL CONTROL DURING THE OFF AIRPORT LANDING. FACTORS WERE THE DISABLED ALTERNATOR AND A LOW CLOUD CEILING.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL92LA112
- Event ID
- 20001211X14573
- Case number
- ATL92LA112
- 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: facc2d50a150fdf44bf857f76c5ff61b081a28c80369ed0a61f1e623f809bd29; retrieved 2026-09-23T03:07:16.014Z.