CHI90LA047 · Cessna 210
Cessna 210 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Washington County Airport (AFJ) to Joliet Regional Airport (JOT)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI90LA047
- 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 210
- 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
- N59145
- Operator
- Archibald R. Prutzman · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Washington County Airport (AFJ), Washington, PATo Joliet Regional Airport (JOT), Joliet, IL
- 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 · 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
- Fuel contamination; Tree(s)
- 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
- Fluid, fuel › Water
- Pilot in command › Preflight planning/preparation, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PLT RPRTD THAT DURING FLT, THE ENG BEGAN TO RUN ROUGH, THEN LOST POWER. HE ELECTED TO LAND IN A SMALL FIELD SURROUNDED BY TREES. HE SAID THAT DURING THE APCH TO LAND, THE ACFT ENCTRD WINDSHEAR, WHICH INCREASED THE RATE OF DESCENT. SUBSEQUENTLY, THE ACFT'S WHEELS HIT TREES BEFORE THE PLANE REACHED THE FIELD, THEN IT NOSE DOWN & IMPACTED THE GROUND. A POST-ACDNT EXAM REVEALED THE GASCOLATOR WAS ABOUT 2/3 FULL OF ICE & WATER WAS FOUND IN THE FLOW DIVIDER. THE PLT SAID THE ACFT HAD BEEN PLACED IN A HEATED HANGAR BEFORE FLT. HE ALSO STATED THAT DURING HIS PREFLT, HE HAD DRAINED THE SUMPS UNTIL HE OBSERVED NO WATER IN THE FUEL.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S FAILURE TO DRAIN ALL OF THE TRAPPED WATER FROM THE FUEL SYSTEM PRIOR TO FLIGHT. FACTORS RELATED TO THE ACCIDENT WERE: THE UNFAVORABLE WIND CONDITION AND TREES IN THE EMERGENCY LANDING AREA.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI90LA047
- Event ID
- 20001213X29935
- Case number
- CHI90LA047
- 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: 7f86623c81ac8ffb2849ddb9d58e67dadd740e3c02330e3b1ceda42dc8d8d335; retrieved 2026-09-23T06:54:34.206Z.