B & M Enterprises Cessna 210L incident
Cessna 210L · Incident: partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Roswell Air Center Airport (ROW) to Albuquerque International Sunport (ABQ)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN89IA047
- 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 210L
- 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
- N59217
- Operator
- B & M Enterprises
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Roswell Air Center Airport (ROW), Roswell, NMTo Albuquerque International Sunport (ABQ), Albuquerque, NM
- 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
- Partial 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
- Minor
Cause areas
- Engine assembly, piston › Burned
- Engine assembly, ring › Burned
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
PLT PREFLIGHTED ACFT AND NOTED INDICATION OF 9 QTS OF OIL IN CRANKCASE. FLT DEPARTED ROSWELL (ROW) IN NIGHT VMC EN ROUTE TO ABQ. PLT HAD JUST LEVELED OFF AT 6500 FT MSL WHEN HE NOTICED OIL PRESSURE GAUGE FLUCTUATING. OIL PRESSURE THEN BEGAN DROPPING AND PLT REVERSED COURSE BACK TO ROW. OIL PRESSURE THEN DROPPED TO ZERO. PLT SAID ENG STARTED MAKING NOISE AND COCKPIT FILLED WITH SMOKE. WITH SOME PWR STILL AVAILABLE, PLT MADE LANDING ON HIGHWAY WITH THE LANDING GEAR UP. POST-INCIDENT EXAM OF ENG DISCLOSED EVIDENCE OF DETONATION. NR 2 PISTON AND RINGS WERE BURNED, ALLOWING COMBUSTION GASES TO ESCAPE INTO CRANKCASE. HIGH EXHAUST GAS PRESSURE WITHIN CRANKCASE VENTED OIL OBERBOARD, CAUSING OIL STARVATION. THE ENG HAD 2053 HRS OF OPERATION AND 998 HRS SINCE A MAJOR OVERHAUL. ON THE MORNING OF THE INCIDENT THE ENG HAD RECEIVED A 100 HR INSPECTION.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN89IA047
- Event ID
- 20001213X27407
- Case number
- DEN89IA047
- 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 1988-12-24.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 5d5492c40d45dc31493c456d9dd232f8ecd585c8c2f8201369f65caba0eb1a76; retrieved 2026-09-18T19:15:49.542Z.