DEN88FA111 · Cessna T210N
El Slash Cattle Cessna T210N · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From No airport to 2V1 · Pagosa Springs, CO
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN88FA111
- 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
- 1 · 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
- N5536A
- Operator
- El Slash Cattle
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From No airportTo 2V1 · Pagosa Springs, CO
- 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 · climb to 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 (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
- Stall
- 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
- Pilot in command › Fuel tank selector position, improper
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Seboyeta, NM, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE PLT DEPARTED EL PASO, TX, AND FLEW TO DOUGLAS, AZ, WHERE THREE PAX BOARDED. THE PLT THEN FLEW TO A RANCH NEAR SEBOYETA, NM, AND LANDED ON A DIRT ROAD. AFTER CONDUCTING BUSINESS, THE PLT AND HIS PAX TOOK OFF FOR PAGOSA SPRINGS, CO. AS THE ACFT TURNED ON A X-WIND LEG, THE ENG QUIT. WHEN THE PLT LEVELED THE WINGS, THE ENG STARTED, THEN QUIT AGAIN. THE PLT ATTEMPTED TO MAKE A FORCED LANDING. DURING THE APPROACH, THE PLT ATTEMPTED TO AVOID AN ARROYO. THE ACFT STALLED AND CRASHED. THE PLT WAS KILLED BUT THE 3 PAX SURVIVED. POST-ACCIDENT EXAMINATION DISCLOSED TRAPPED FUEL BETWEEN THE FUEL CONTROLLER AND FUEL MANIFOLD. APRX ONE-HALF TANK OF FUEL WAS IN LEFT TANK. RT TANK WAS EMPTY. PLT WAS SEEN TO TURN FUEL SELECTOR FROM LEFT TANK TO RIGHT TANK. ALL FUEL LINES WERE SEVERED. THE ENG WAS LATER FUNCTIONALLY TESTED AND DEVELOPED FULL PWR.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN88FA111
- Event ID
- 20001213X25669
- Case number
- DEN88FA111
- 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: be28d92843a52f7005e5309effae011addf69c8cd292c405b4326c5c5120b829; retrieved 2026-09-21T03:42:43.691Z.