DEN90LA173 · Cessna T-210-L
Cessna T-210-L · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) during initial climb
From an unrecorded airport to Chloride Airport (NM51)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN90LA173
- 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 T-210-L
- Aircraft type
- Cessna T-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
- N5397V
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Chloride Airport (NM51)
- 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
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Engine assembly, connecting rod › Failure, total
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PRIVATE PILOT REPORTED DURING INITIAL CLIMB, FOLLOWING AN ANNUAL INSPECTION, WHICH INCLUDED REPLACEMENT OF THREE CYLINDERS, THE ENGINE BEGAN TO MAKE NOISES AND QUIT. THE PLANE HAD ATTAINED 400 FEET AGL, AND THE PILOT ATTEMPTED TO LAND ON A ROAD. THE PLANE LANDED SHORT IN A ROUGH FIELD, SLID 550 FEET, CROSSED A DITCH, AN ARROYO, THE ROAD, AND STRUCK A DIRT BANK. THE LEFT WING SPAR, FUSELAGE, ENGINE MOUNT AND FIREWALL WERE DAMAGED. A POSTACCIDENT ENGINE TEARDOWN REVEALED THAT THE NUMBER TWO ROD HAD FAILED AND CAUSED AN ENGINE STOPPAGE. THE ROD SHOWED EVIDENCE OF UNDER LUBRICATION AND OVERHEATING. THE INVESTIGATION FOUND NO EVIDENCE THAT THE ROD HAD BEEN REMOVED DURING THE MAINTENANCE.
Probable cause
ENGINE FAILURE DUE TO A BROKEN CONNECTING ROD. A FACTOR WAS THE ROUGH UNEVEN TERRAIN AVAILABLE FOR THE FORCED LANDING.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN90LA173
- Event ID
- 20001212X23982
- Case number
- DEN90LA173
- 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: effaa95d3df037609285731f004e6d98eaa12fec64368a682dfd2b889092c1e2; retrieved 2026-09-23T05:24:21.283Z.