FTW92LA031 · Cessna 210
Cessna 210 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From 6A0 · Cartersville, GA to Houston Southwest Airport (AXH)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW92LA031
- 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 210
- 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
- N9503T
- Operator
- Hawkins, Thomas R. · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 6A0 · Cartersville, GATo Houston Southwest Airport (AXH), Houston, TX
- 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
- 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 › Fuel consumption calculations, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
ACCORDING TO THE PILOT, HE ENCOUNTERED THE FORECAST HEAD WINDS EN ROUTE AND HE INTENTIONALLY RAN THE LEFT TANK DRY AND WAS FLYING ON THE RIGHT TANK DURING THE DESCENT WHEN IT ALSO RAN DRY. HE STATED THAT AT THE TIME OF THE TANK CHANGE HE THOUGHT ABOUT REQUESTING AN ALTERNATE, BUT DID NOT. AFTER THE ENGINE FAILURE THE PILOT WAS GIVEN RADAR VECTORS TO THE FINAL LOCALIZER APPROACH COURSE OF A NEARBY AIRPORT; HOWEVER, HE HAD INSUFFICIENT ALTITUDE TO REACH THE RUNWAY. HE BROKE OUT AT 700 FEET AND WAS ABLE TO LAND ON A PLAYING FIELD ADJACENT TO A CHURCH IN AN URBAN AREA. AFTER ROLLING ABOUT 234 FEET, THE AIRPLANE STRUCK A BASEBALL BACK STOP AND CAME TO REST IN THE CHURCH PARKING LOT. THE PILOT'S FUEL CALCULATIONS INDICATED THAT HE HAD 6.5 HOURS TO FUEL EXHAUSTION, WHILE ACTUAL FUEL EXHAUSTION OCCURRED AFTER 5.5 HOURS. THE LEFT TANK RAN DRY AT 2.6 HOURS AND THE RIGHT RAN DRY AT 2.9 HOURS.
Probable cause
FUEL EXHAUSTION WHICH PRECIPITATED THE FORCED LANDING DUE TO THE PILOT'S INADEQUATE FUEL CONSUMPTION CALCULATIONS. A FACTOR IN THE ACCIDENT WAS THE PILOT'S FAILURE TO DIVERT TO AN ALTERNATE DESTINATION WHEN HE RECOGNIZED THAT FUEL EXHAUSTION WAS A POSSIBILITY.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW92LA031
- Event ID
- 20001212X18595
- Case number
- FTW92LA031
- 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: 96c173d65b0d2ec8a4b6153ee5672d25a77741511b4810ef197b7dfa058b65b7; retrieved 2026-09-23T03:30:49.705Z.