Flight Express Flight 615
Cessna T210N · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Hawkins Field (KHKS) to William P. Hobby Airport (KHOU)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA05LA016
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Instrument 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
- N6108Y
- Operator
- Flight Express
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Hawkins Field (KHKS), Jackson, MSTo William P. Hobby Airport (KHOU), Houston, TX
- 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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 (mechanical failure)
- 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
- Engine assembly, bearing › Shifted
- Engine assembly, connecting rod › Failure, total
- Engine assembly, crankcase › Fretted
- Pilot in command › Unsuitable terrain or takeoff/landing/taxi area, encountered
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
After takeoff the flight climbed to 6,000 feet and as soon as the pilot leveled off, he heard a "loud bang" and felt the airframe shaking. The cockpit then filled with smoke, and he requested a vector to the nearest airport. He attempted to keep the engine running but was unsuccessful. The flight descended and broke out of the clouds at 200 feet above ground level where he slowed the airplane to less than the best glide airspeed to clear power lines. The airplane landed "rather hard" in a field against furrows, nosed over, then burst into flames. He exited the airplane from the pilot's window. Examination of the engine revealed fretting at the main bearing support faying surfaces, with resulting shifting of the No. 2 main bearing. Lubrication distress was noted at all main bearing and connecting rod journals, and for Nos. 3-6 connecting rod bearings. The Nos. 1 and 2 connecting rods were fractured while one of the connecting rod bolts for the No.3 cylinder was fractured with necking present. The engine was last overhauled on October 1, 2002, and installed in the accident airplane on October 28, 2002; the engine had accumulated 1,297 hours since being overhauled at the time of the failure and there was no record that any cylinders had been removed and/or replaced since the engine was overhauled.
Probable cause
The total loss of engine power which was initiated by fretting of the crankcase halves for undetermined reasons, causing rotation of several of the main bearings, oil starvation, and subsequent failure of several of the connecting rods. A contributing factor was the rough terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA05LA016
- Event ID
- 20041101X01730
- Case number
- MIA05LA016
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (5)
- 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: 0a0357dc4bdad795a19b6f144a14ade4f972334d58409985dab4d6b21afab402; retrieved 2026-09-18T15:13:35.587Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N6108Y; the operator shown is the name the NTSB's other records give its FAA operator code, FPIA.