Flight Express Cessna 210-M accident
Cessna 210-M · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) during initial climb
From an unrecorded airport to Miami-Opa Locka Executive Airport (OPF)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA90FA074
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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 210-M
- 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
- N525CW
- Operator
- Flight Express
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Miami-Opa Locka Executive Airport (OPF), OPA LOCKA, FL
- 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Engine assembly, crankshaft › Fatigue
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Sarasota, FL, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE COMMERCIAL PILOT WAS ON INITIAL CLIMB AT 200 FEET AGL FROM THE SARASOTA-BRADENTON AIRPORT, SARASOTA, FLORIDA, WHEN THE AIRPLANE EXPERIENCED A TOTAL LOSS OF ENGINE POWER. THE PILOT WAS ON A NON SCHEDULED AIR TAXI FLIGHT IN VFR CONDITIONS. NO FLIGHT PLAN WAS FILED. THE PILOT CONDUCTED AN EMERGENCY DESCENT, AND FORCED LANDING BACK TO THE DEPARTURE AIRPORT. ON LANDING ROLL, THE AIRPLANE EXPERIENCED AN ON GROUND COLLISION WITH A DIRT BANK AND WAS DESTROYED. THE PILOT SUSTAINED SERIOUS INJURIES. EXAMINATION OF THE CRANKSHAFT BY THE NTSB MATERIALS LABORATORY REVEALED THE CRANKSHAFT FAILED DUE TO FATIGUE CRACKING OF UNDETERMINED ORIGIN.
Probable cause
THE TOTAL LOSS OF ENGINE POWER CAUSED BY CRANKSHAFT FAILURE, DUE TO FATIGUE CRACKING OF UNDETERMINED ORIGIN.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA90FA074
- Event ID
- 20001212X22606
- Case number
- MIA90FA074
- 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: 6c9a3295db5b560649b4a9b4031afc8e64dc5288308b4cc644fe9e651fe9288f; retrieved 2026-09-18T19:04:17.720Z.