ATL90FA016 · Cessna T210M
Cessna T210M · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) on approach
From Savannah Hilton Head International Airport (SAV) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL90FA016
- 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 T210M
- 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
- N8444M
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Savannah Hilton Head International Airport (SAV), Savannah, GATo 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
- 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
- Engine instruments, fuel quantity gage › False indication
- Fluid, fuel › Starvation
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, calibration, inaccurate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE AIRPLANE LOST ENGINE PWR ON FINAL, AND WAS LANDED SHORT OF THE RWY ON UNEVEN TERRAIN. EXAM OF THE ACFT REVEALED 1-2 QTS OF FUEL REMAINING IN THE LT TANK & 6-7 GALLONS IN THE RT TANK. THE LT FUEL QTY GAUGE INDICATED 5 GALLONS REMAINING IN THE LT TANK. THE PVT PLT & THE CHECK PLT STATED THAT THE LT TANK WAS IN USE WHEN THE ENGINE LOST POWER; THEY NOTED THAT THE 44 GAL LT TANK WAS FULL WHEN THEY PRE-FLIGHTED THE ACFT, AND THAT THEY OPERATED ON THE LT TANK FOR A TOTAL OF 1 HR 40 MIN DURING THE FLT. ACCORDING TO THE AIRFRAME LOG, THE FUEL GAUGES WERE RECENTLY RECALIBRATED. THE PLT, WHO RECENTLY BOUGHT THE ACFT, NOTED THAT THE ACFT HAD PREVIOUS PROBLEMS WITH IN-FLT FUEL SIPHONING WHICH WERE REPORTEDLY FIXED. INVESTIGATION ALSO REVEALED THAT THE LEFT WING WAS FROM AN OLDER MODEL 210. THE AIRFRAME MAINTENANCE RECORDS CONTAINED NO RECORD OF ANY MAJOR REPAIRS/MODS. ACCORDING TO NTSB FILES, THE ACFT WAS IN AN ACCIDENT IN 1984. IT WAS REPORTED AS SCRAPPED TO THE FAA IN 1985, AND RE-REGISTERED IN 1987.
Probable cause
THE IMPROPER CALIBRATION OF THE FUEL QUANTITY GAUGES BY MAINTENANCE PERSONNEL, WHICH RESULTED IN ERRONEOUS FUEL QUANTITY INDICATIONS AND LED TO FUEL STARVATION. CONTRIBUTING TO THE ACCIDENT WERE THE UNSUITABLE TERRAIN CONDITIONS THAT EXISTED AT THE FORCED-LANDING SITE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL90FA016
- Event ID
- 20001213X29523
- Case number
- ATL90FA016
- 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: d5bda39a435dca19e0bb9fd6de6c928b942c1f8a680fdf81dd8a8dc2ddaccbeb; retrieved 2026-09-22T00:00:14.950Z.