CHI00LA052 · Cessna T210F
Cessna T210F · Accident: loss of engine power en route
From Des Moines International Airport (DSM) to La Porte Municipal Airport (T41)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI00LA052
- 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 T210F
- 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
- N6144R
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Des Moines International Airport (DSM), Des Moines, IATo La Porte Municipal Airport (T41), La Porte, 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 · climb to 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
- Tree(s)
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot said, 'As I passed through 6,000 feet, I experienced severe engine knock and a gradual loss of power.' The pilot adjusted the mixture. 'However, adjusting the mixture either way resulted in additional loss of power and did not solve the engine knock. I set the mixture to the best setting I could find.' The pilot declared an emergency with Des Moines Departure Control. The pilot said, 'Des Moines recommended that I proceed to the Indianola Airport, so I turned on heading and attempted to maintain a glide speed of 85 miles per hour. Despite clock headings given to me by Des Moines, I still did not have Indianola Airport in sight. The only field I thought I could make was slightly ahead of me, and it had trees on the touch down end of the field.' The pilot said he turned toward the field, lowered the landing gear, and lowered 'some flaps.' The pilot said, 'As I turned on course for the field, I realized my rate of descent was too high and that I did not have enough airspeed to pull up over the trees while banking. At that point, I struck the tree.' The airplane's engine was later successfully run at Teledyne Continental Motors.
Probable cause
loss of engine power for undetermined reason. A factor relating to this accident was the tree.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI00LA052
- Event ID
- 20001212X20212
- Case number
- CHI00LA052
- 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: a804a341716f4b262187c783b5e78e172f8ad3350ff67dd7bc0bab216c682186; retrieved 2026-09-21T10:44:14.583Z.