LAX03LA089 · Cessna T210L
Cessna T210L · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) while maneuvering
From Stockton Metropolitan Airport (SCK) to Stockton Metropolitan Airport (SCK)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX03LA089
- 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 T210L
- 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
- N5089V
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Stockton Metropolitan Airport (SCK), Stockton, CATo Stockton Metropolitan Airport (SCK)
- 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
- Maneuvering
- 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 starvation
- 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 › Starvation
- Pilot in command › Fuel management, improper
- Pilot in command › Fuel supply, not verified
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
All engine power was lost due to fuel starvation while the pilot was maneuvering on a work-related photography flight. The pilot made a hard forced landing in a soft open field. According to the pilot, he had not visually confirmed the quantity of fuel in the tanks prior to initiating the 1 1/2-hour-long flight. However, he believed about 45 gallons of fuel were available for use. When the engine lost power he repositioned the fuel selector from the right to the left fuel tank, but power was not restored. During the subsequent airplane examination, the right fuel tank was found dry, and 4 gallons of fuel were found in the left tank. Drops of fuel were found in the metered fuel line from the metering unit to the manifold valve and in the return line at the engine driven fuel pump. The main fuel line to the engine driven fuel pump was dry. Some fuel was present in the return line from the metering unit to the engine driven fuel pump. The gascolator was about 1/4 full of fuel. Approximately 1 1/2 ounces of fuel could be drained from the left header tank. The airplane's electric boost pump was activated, and it operated. The engine was examined and the crankshaft was rotated by hand. No evidence of any preimpact mechanical malfunction was found with internal engine components.
Probable cause
fuel starvation due to the pilot's mismanagement of the fuel supply and failure to verify the fuel quantity on board at departure.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX03LA089
- Event ID
- 20030220X00243
- Case number
- LAX03LA089
- 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: ad1e7f3f883f2d8bc11599416d96b06cc69093a4a5357984f74337a734097cb8; retrieved 2026-09-21T09:31:12.504Z.