LAX86LA331 · Cessna P210N
Cessna P210N · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Hollywood Burbank/Bob Hope Airport (BUR) to Bermuda Dunes Airport (UDD)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX86LA331
- 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 P210N
- 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
- N5135A
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Hollywood Burbank/Bob Hope Airport (BUR), Burbank, CATo Bermuda Dunes Airport (UDD), Bermuda Dunes, CA
- 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 · descent
- 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)
- 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
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, inspection, inadequate
- Production/design personnel › Acft/equip, inadequate design
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
A TOTAL LOSS OF POWER WAS EXPERIENCED DURING A DESCENT FROM 17,500' MSL TO 10,000' MSL. ATTEMPTS TO RESTART THE ENGINE FAILED AND THE ACFT WAS LANDED GEAR-UP IN A ROCKY FIELD. POST ACCIDENT INSPECTION DISCLOSED A TRACK OF INTERNAL ELECTRICAL ARCING IN THE DISTRIBUTOR SECTION OF BOTH MAGNETOS. THE SLICK MAGNETOS, MODEL NUMBER 6220, HAD A TOTAL TIME SINCE NEW OF 401 HOURS. THE ACFT SERVICE INSTRUCTIONS SUGGEST THE MAGNETO BREAKER COMPARTMENT BE INSPECTED DURING THE FIRST 25 HOUR ACFT INSPECTION AND DURING EACH SUBSEQUENT 100 HOUR INSPECTION. THE ACFT HAD RECEIVED AN ANNUAL INSPECTION 36 HOURS PRIOR TO THE ACCIDENT. THE MANUFACTURERS SEAL ON THE BREAKER COMPARTMENT SCREW HEADS HAD NOT BEEN BROKEN INDICATING THE MAGNETOS WERE NOT INSPECTED DURING THE ANNUAL INSPECTION.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX86LA331
- Event ID
- 20001213X34529
- Case number
- LAX86LA331
- 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: e9a33612b4f233622a9eec8f7d749a60e8ebfcbd1294b76560d3528bff9da953; retrieved 2026-09-21T16:52:13.544Z.