FTW00LA028 · Cessna 210K
Cessna 210K · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Lubbock Preston Smith International Airport (LBB) to Smyrna Airport (MQY)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW00LA028
- 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 210K
- 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
- N1162M
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Lubbock Preston Smith International Airport (LBB), Lubbock, TXTo Smyrna Airport (MQY), Smyrna, TN
- 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
- Total loss of engine power (mechanical 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
- Manufacturer › Inadequate quality control
- Throttle/power lever, cable › Fatigue
- Throttle/power lever, cable › Scored
- Throttle/power lever, cable › Separation
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During cruise flight, the pilot retarded the throttle to initiate a descent, intending to reduce manifold pressure from 24 inches to 21 inches. As the manifold pressure dropped below 21 inches, the pilot increased the throttle; however, the manifold pressure continued to decrease until the needle reached the lowest reading on the gauge. The pilot exercised the throttle through its full range, but received no response from the engine. He then executed a forced landing to a muddy field. Postaccident examination of the airplane revealed that the throttle cable had separated. The cable was examined at the NTSB Materials Laboratory and it was determined that the cable failed as result of fatigue cracking. The outer coiled spring housing, in which fatigue was observed, had a coarse texture and contained tool marks and surface fissures. The origin of the fatigue was observed at one of the fissures. There was no corrosion or deposits observed on the exterior surface of the cord. The throttle cable had been installed new 71.3 hours prior to the accident.
Probable cause
Inadequate quality control by the manufacturer of the throttle control cable, which resulted in failure of the cable due to fatigue. A factor was the lack of suitable terrain for the forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW00LA028
- Event ID
- 20001212X19966
- Case number
- FTW00LA028
- 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: 78510bbc5039d8a9361eede8b77704e2b1da6f1cc851a56094b073536ce94ea1; retrieved 2026-09-22T13:46:01.145Z.