DEN04LA025 · Cessna T210K
Cessna T210K · Accident: partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical) on approach
From Oakland San Francisco Bay Airport (OAK) to Deming Municipal Airport (DMN)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN04LA025
- 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 T210K
- 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
- N81PC
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Oakland San Francisco Bay Airport (OAK), Oakland, CATo Deming Municipal Airport (DMN), Deming, NM
- 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
- 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 (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
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, improper
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was on approach to the airport. At 5 nautical miles from the airport, the airplane was approximately 4,000 feet above ground level. The pilot lowered the landing gear, set 30 degrees of flaps, and initiated several "S" turns to lose altitude. The pilot said that at 2 miles from the runway, he switched his fuel selector to the right fuel tank, which had more fuel. The pilot continued the "S" turns until he was 1/3 mile from the end of the runway. When he applied power to level off, there was no response. The pilot selected a field to the right of his final approach course. The airplane touched down approximately 20 feet short of his intended field. The airplane struck a wrought iron fence, collapsing the nose gear and the left main landing gear. An examination of the engine showed no evidence of fuel in the fuel distribution manifold or fuel lines. An examination of the fuel tanks showed some fuel in the right fuel tank. An examination of the airplane's, engine controls and remaining systems revealed no anomalies.
Probable cause
The pilot's improper in-flight planning and decision. Factors contributing to the accident were fuel exhaustion and the fence.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN04LA025
- Event ID
- 20031201X01969
- Case number
- DEN04LA025
- 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: f861f849758527325618f803039905b22013d65a44d1f30b2a8a69dd5f4b1b36; retrieved 2026-09-22T08:07:28.509Z.