ANC90FA097 · Cessna 206
Cessna 206 · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC90FA097
- 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 206
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 206
- 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
- N7560G
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- 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
- Engine assembly, other › Failure, total
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Fairbanks, AK, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
WHILE IN CRUISE FLIGHT, THE PILOT-IN-COMMAND EXPERIENCED A COMPLETE MECHANICAL STOPPAGE OF THE POWERPLANT. HE WAS FORCED TO LAND IN A BURNED SECTION OF WOODLAND THAT HAD DEAD TREES SCATTERED THROUGHOUT AND ONTO ROUGH AND UNEVEN TUNDRA. SUBSEQUENT EXAMINATION OF THE ENGINE REVEALED THAT THE NUMBER 5 CYLINDER'S PISTON WRISTPIN HAD FAILED AND ALLOWED THE CONNECTING ROD TO SEPARATE FROM THE PISTON. THE CONNECTING ROD DAMAGED THE INTERNAL PORTIONS OF THE ENGINE CASE IN ITS PLANE OF ROTATION AND BY JAMMING INTO THE CASE CAUSED THE ENGINE TO STOP ROTATING.
Probable cause
THE FAILURE OF THE WRISTPIN CAUSED THE SEPARATION OF THE CONNECTING ROD FROM THE PISTON AND SUBSEQUENT SEIZURE OF THE ENGINE. A FACTOR WAS UNAVAILABILITY OF A SUITABLE FORCED LANDING AREA.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC90FA097
- Event ID
- 20001212X23295
- Case number
- ANC90FA097
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1990-06-27.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 132c03889907259bccf971040b20dae6398a39f294b2d4edb9ef9d2281bb7465; retrieved 2026-09-21T15:40:47.550Z.