FTW01FA116 · Cessna 210K
Cessna 210K · Accident: in flight collision with object on approach
From Austin Bergstrom International Airport (AUS) to Real County Airport (49R)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW01FA116
- 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
- 4 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- 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 210K
- 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
- N8246M
- Operator
- Thomas O. Hutchinson · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Austin Bergstrom International Airport (AUS), Austin, TXTo Real County Airport (49R), Leakey, TX
- 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 go-around
- 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
- In flight collision with object
- 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
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Clearance, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane entered a left-hand traffic pattern for the runway and averaged 130 knots ground speed on the downwind leg. The aircraft's average ground speed on final approach was 146 knots. Review of the radar data depicted that the pilot would have had to fly a 5.06 degree descent angle from the last radar position in order to land at the runway's threshold. An ear-witness, located at the airport, stated that he heard a reduction in engine power coming from a left downwind position, as if the airplane was coming in for a landing. The ear-witness heard the airplane fly the traffic pattern, then heard the engine power being applied "as if the pilot was intending to go-around or had performed a touch-and-go." The ear-witness subsequently heard two bangs followed by a louder bang. The airplane impacted trees near the departure end of the runway and subsequently hit a paved road. The airplane came to rest inverted on the side of the road and was consumed by fire. The flaps and landing gear were found in the retracted positions. No anomalies with the engine or aircraft were noted that would have prevented normal flight operations.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain obstacle clearance during a go-around, which resulted in the aircraft impacting a tree.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW01FA116
- Event ID
- 20010522X00984
- Case number
- FTW01FA116
- 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, coordinates. 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: 957dd9d4af3a404327476db9942f06bb1f26230f659c0c1c7176fb3b9d9c1d35; retrieved 2026-09-20T20:33:14.477Z.