IAD02FA002 · Cessna 210M
Cessna 210M · Accident: loss of control in flight en route
From The Ohio State University Airport - Don Scott Field (OSU) to Syracuse Hancock International Airport (SYR)
Event
- NTSB case
- IAD02FA002
- 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
- 2 · 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 210M
- 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
- N6053B
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From The Ohio State University Airport - Don Scott Field (OSU), Columbus, OHTo Syracuse Hancock International Airport (SYR), Syracuse, NY
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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 › Aircraft control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Design stress limits of aircraft, exceeded
- Pilot in command › Spatial disorientation
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 was cruising at 11,000 feet when the air traffic controller noticed it was over 40 degrees off its assigned heading. The controller contacted the pilot, who said he would correct his heading. The controller then offered him a direct course to his destination, which the pilot accepted. The controller observed the airplane make another "hard left turn," and queried the pilot again, but received no reply. The airplane lost 4,000 feet during a 24-second period, after which, radar contact ceased. Witnesses on the ground saw the airplane descend out of the clouds in a vertical spiral, then saw the left wing depart. The engine was running in an overspeed condition. Toxicological testing of the pilot, a retired medical doctor, revealed the presence of a barbiturate, an antidepressant, an antihistamine sometimes prescribed as a sleep aid, and quinine.
Probable cause
The pilot's loss of control in flight due to spatial disorientation, and his subsequent overstress of the airplane during a recovery attempt. A factor in the accident was the pilot's use of inappropriate medications.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record IAD02FA002
- Event ID
- 20011019X02121
- Case number
- IAD02FA002
- 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: 07cf576ae45112b7e3dc126e42e230cd846c916ce3bb33ee24b4bd01d1c82062; retrieved 2026-09-20T20:20:09.133Z.