DEN90LA181 · Cessna T210N
Cessna T210N · Accident: in flight encounter with weather on approach
From Santa Barbara Municipal Airport (SBA) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN90LA181
- 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 T210N
- 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
- N5241C
- Operator
- Barbara B. Echemann · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Santa Barbara Municipal Airport (SBA), Santa Barbara, CATo 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
- Approach · VFR pattern final
- 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
- In flight encounter with weather
- 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
- Weather condition › Turbulence
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PRIVATE PILOT ATTEMPTED TO LAND AFTER RECEIVING A PILOT REPORT OF CALM WINDS. ON SHORT FINAL THE PLANE ENCOUNTERED A MICROBURST THAT ABRUPTLY INCREASED THE RATE OF DESCENT. THE PILOT ATTEMPTED TO CHECK THE HIGH RATE OF DESCENT TO NO AVAIL. THE PLANE STRUCK THE RUNWAY, LANDED HARD, COLLAPSED THE LANDING GEAR, DAMAGED THE WING SPARS, AND CAME TO REST ON THE LEFT SIDE OF THE RUNWAY. AFTER EXITING THE WRECKAGE, THE PILOT SAID THE WIND WAS FROM 080 DEGREES AT 15, GUSTING TO 20. A WITNESS REPORTED THE WIND HAD CHANGED FROM CALM TO STRONG IN A FEW SECONDS, AT THE TIME OF THE ACCIDENT. THE INVESTIGATION REVEALED THAT LIGHTNING AND VIRGA HAD BEEN SEEN IN THE AREA AND RAIN SHOWERS BEGAN WITHIN THREE MINUTES OF THE ACCIDENT.
Probable cause
THE LOSS OF CONTROL OF THE AIRPLANE WHEN THE PILOT ENCOUNTERED TURBULENCE ON SHORT FINAL TO LAND.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN90LA181
- Event ID
- 20001212X24245
- Case number
- DEN90LA181
- 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 1990-09-05.
- API snapshot SHA-256: b2a3cc1a9f87adc63134e2e8a903b9b415a376a4229dcfff5857fed999765e4a; retrieved 2026-09-23T05:20:48.216Z.