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NYC02FA068 · Cessna T210N

9 Mar 2002 · Teterboro, NJ, United States

Cessna T210N · Accident: partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure) during initial climb

From Teterboro Airport (TEB) to Montauk Airport (MTP)

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Event

NTSB case
NYC02FA068
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
1 · 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 T210N

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
N2BS
Operator
Unknown
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From Teterboro Airport (TEB), Teterboro, NJTo Montauk Airport (MTP), Montauk, 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
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
Partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure)
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
Stall/mush
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

  • Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, installation, improper

Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.

NTSB narrative

Several witnesses observed the Cessna T210N on initial climb, and then heard a reduction of engine power. Some witnesses thought the nose had pitched up after the power reduction, and prior to the airplane turning left and descending. The airplane banked left, descended, and struck the ground on airport property. A post-crash fire started within seconds after the airplane came to rest and consumed the cabin of the airplane. Examination of the engine revealed that the air filter element was lodged into the turbocharger air intake, and adjacent ducting. The single screen on the air filter was found on the air intake side. Installation instructions specify that with a single screen, the screen should be on the engine side of the air filter element. The air filter element had been changed during an annual inspection, about 2 1/2 months, and 30 hours prior to the accident. The specified change interval for the filter element was 12 months, 200 hours, or when the filter element was 50 % covered by foreign material. The initial emergency procedure for loss of engine power after takeoff was to maintain an airspeed of 85 knots.

Probable cause

Improper maintenance by other maintenance personnel, which resulted in the air filter element being sucked into and blocking the turbocharger inlet, and a subsequent power loss. Factors in the accident were the pilot's failure to maintain airspeed and the tail wind.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record NYC02FA068
Event ID
20020315X00348
Case number
NYC02FA068
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: 2a3a7598a13851927e260ebe5a954df88bab4c3e9edbdc6dbe43d6e2976d5945; retrieved 2026-09-20T20:09:00.044Z.