Red Tail Aviation Cessna 206 incident
Cessna 206 · Incident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Grand Junction Regional Airport (GJT) to Canyonlands Regional Airport (CNY)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN88IA204
- 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
- Incident
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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
- N71001
- Operator
- Red Tail Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Grand Junction Regional Airport (GJT), Grand Junction, COTo Canyonlands Regional Airport (CNY), Moab, UT
- 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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)
- 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
- Wire, static
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- None
Cause areas
- Engine assembly, connecting rod › Fatigue
- Light condition › Sunglare
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE COMMERCIAL PLT WAS TRANSPORTING ONE PAX DURING AN AIR TAXI FLT. THE PLT REPORTED THAT THE ENGINE BEGAN TO RUN ROUGH AND LOST OIL PRESSURE. HE SAID THE ENGINE SEIZED AND HE TURNED TOWARD THE EAST FOR AN EMERGENCY LANDING, ON A PARK SERVICE ROAD. THE PLT SAID THAT THE SUN PREVENTED HIS SEEING POWER LINES ACROSS THE ROAD. ON FINAL APPROACH, THE PLANE'S MAIN LANDING GEAR STRUCK THE POWER WIRES, BUT THE PLANE LANDED WITHOUT DAMAGE. A POST ACCIDENT ENGINE EXAMINATION BY AN FAA AIRWORTHINESS INSPECTOR REVEALED EVIDENCE THAT THE #1 ROD ASSEMBLY HAD FAILED AND RESULTED IN TOTAL ENGINE STOPPAGE. THE BROKEN PARTS WERE ANALYZED BY THE NTSB MATERIALS LABORATORY. THE ANALYSIS REVEALED EVIDENCE TYPICAL OF FATIGUE FRACTURES IN THE ROD ASSEMBLY.
Probable cause
THE FAILURE OF THE #1 CONNECTING ROD ASSEMBLY IN THE ENGINE, RESULTING IN A FORCED LANDING. A FACTOR IN THE INCIDENT WAS THAT THE PILOT DID NOT SEE & AVOID POWER WIRES IN THE FORCED LANDING PATH.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN88IA204
- Event ID
- 20001213X26807
- Case number
- DEN88IA204
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (5)
- 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, damage. 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: e6d0541ea16106939838197b226a9d73a740f17ed4545677ae108a8dbb74fb6f; retrieved 2026-09-18T19:18:51.507Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N71001; the operator shown is the name the NTSB records it doing business as.