DEN01LA022 · Cessna 210C
Cessna 210C · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) during initial climb
From 1V5 · CO to Centennial Airport (APA)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN01LA022
- 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 210C
- 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
- N969RJ
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 1V5 · COTo Centennial Airport (APA), Englewood, CO
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- 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 › Contamination, water
- Pilot in command › Refueling, not performed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane had sat dormant for almost 8 years, and extensive checks and servicing were performed to prepare it for a ferry flight to a nearby airport where it was scheduled to undergo an annual inspection. FAA issued a ferry permit. The airplane was placed in a heated hangar the night before the flight. When the pilot preflighted the airplane the next morning, 'a little water' was found in the gascolator and 'a tiny amount' was found in the right wing sump. He chose not to have the fuel drained and the airplane serviced with fresh fuel. He later told a local newspaper that he had drained the fuel system and thought he had removed all the water, 'but apparently it was not enough.' He was unsuccessful in trying to start the engine. After it was preheated, the engine started, and he performed 'an extended time warm up and extended pretakeoff run-up.' Shortly after taking off, the engine lost 'complete power.' The pilot enriched the mixture and turned the auxiliary fuel pump first to LOW, then to HIGH. Power returned momentarily, then the engine lost power again. The pilot did not have a chance to switch fuel tanks, but concentrated instead on the forced landing. The airplane 'skimmed the tops of hills, went through a fence, nosed over, and tumbled 2 or 3 times.' Later examination of the engine disclosed the plunger in the fuel manifold was frozen in position, and there was ice in the chamber under the screen.
Probable cause
Total loss of engine power due to fuel contamination (water), and failure of the pilot to have the airplane completely refueled. A factor was unsuitable terrain on which to make a forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN01LA022
- Event ID
- 20010110X00074
- Case number
- DEN01LA022
- 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: b338049ce90945f8eeccd2ddf719a002fb3d634ef7e858686315728bc4283158; retrieved 2026-09-22T12:17:15.218Z.