BFO88FA014 · Cessna T210N
Armel Aviation Cessna T210N · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) on approach
From Washington Dulles International Airport (IAD) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- BFO88FA014
- 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
- N5350A
- Operator
- Armel Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Washington Dulles International Airport (IAD)To 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
- 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 (non-mechanical)
- 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
- Fuel starvation
- 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
- Dual student › Fuel tank selector position, improper
- Fluid, fuel › Starvation
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Emergency procedure, improper
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Supervision, inadequate
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Sterling, VA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
ABT 2.7 HRS AFTER TAKEOFF, THE STUDENT PLT & INSTRUCTOR (CFI) WERE PRACTICING INSTRUMENT APCHS WHEN THE ENG LOST PWR. THE CFI TOOK CONTROL OF THE ACFT & MADE A FORCED LNDG, BUT THE ACFT WAS DAMAGED ON ROUGH TERRAIN. AN EXAM OF THE ACFT REVEALED THE RIGHT & LEFT TANKS HAD ABOUT 0.5 & 30 GAL OF FUEL, RESPECTIVELY. THE FUEL SELECTOR WAS FOUND IN THE RIGHT TANK POSITION. THE ACFT HAD BEEN FLOWN ABOUT 4.3 HRS SINCE IT WAS LAST REFUELED & THE RIGHT TANK HAD BEEN USED FOR ABOUT 3.5 HRS OF THAT TIME. ALSO, THE RGT TANK HAD BEEN USED FOR THE ENTIRE TIME OF THE ACDNT FLT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record BFO88FA014
- Event ID
- 20001213X24853
- Case number
- BFO88FA014
- 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: 9a83bcd95884320a13cea94b610cf96728fab603fc63da2e8258356f73518483; retrieved 2026-09-23T11:12:25.407Z.