LAX02LA055 · Cessna T210M
Cessna T210M · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Lampson Field (1O2) to Petaluma Municipal Airport (O69)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX02LA055
- 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
- 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 T210M
- 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
- N1309M
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Lampson Field (1O2), Lakeport, CATo Petaluma Municipal Airport (O69), Petaluma, 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 · 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 exhaustion
- 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 › Exhaustion
- Pilot in command › Fuel consumption calculations, incorrect
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Preflight planning/preparation, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane collided with power lines and landed in a vineyard about 1 mile south of Sonoma County Airport (STS), Santa Rosa, California, during a forced landing following a loss of engine power. The pilot noted about 20 gallons of fuel in the left tank and 15 gallons in the right tank during preflight. He flew from Petaluma, California, to Lakeport, California. The pilot was cruising at 5,500 feet on the return to Petaluma and began a descent when he was abeam Santa Rosa. He was well past Santa Rosa when the engine began to run rough; the right fuel gauge indicated 5 to 7 gallons. He switched from the right tank to the left tank, which now indicated 10 to 15 gallons, and the engine ran smoother. He continued toward Petaluma at an altitude of 3,000 feet, but could not visually acquire the airport's rotating beacon. He tried to activate the pilot controlled runway lights, but still could not visually identify the airport. He decided to fly back to Sonoma County Airport. He lost and regained power five times as he headed to Sonoma County Airport. The Air Traffic Control Tower advised him that a vineyard was south of the airport. The pilot could not see the landing area because of the darkness, but headed toward the dark field. He contacted power lines just prior to touchdown, but landed upright in the vineyard. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the fuselage. The recovery agent did not observe any fuel in either tank, and no fuel drained out of the fuel lines when they were disconnected during disassembly for transport.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate preflight and in-flight planning/decision resulting in miscalculation of fuel consumption, fuel exhaustion and loss of engine power. Factors were rough terrain in a vineyard, power lines in the landing area, and night time.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX02LA055
- Event ID
- 20020103X00020
- Case number
- LAX02LA055
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2001-12-25.
- API snapshot SHA-256: c757b07ae9943a37729b37e93ba030352a80f6463bb40ceaf82788cc2eb480fc; retrieved 2026-09-22T11:13:41.226Z.