CHI05LA079 · Cessna 210E
Cessna 210E · Accident: partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Branch County Memorial Airport (OEB) to Three Rivers Municipal Dr Haines Airport (HAI)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI05LA079
- 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 210E
- 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
- N2380F
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Branch County Memorial Airport (OEB), Coldwater, MITo Three Rivers Municipal Dr Haines Airport (HAI), Three Rivers, MI
- 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
- 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 contamination
- 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 › Contamination, water
- Pilot in command › Preflight planning/preparation, inadequate
- 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
The airplane sustained substantial damage when it nosed over during a forced landing following an in-flight loss of engine power. The pilot stated, "Additional fuel was added, all sumps drained with no water found. Owner/operator felt aircraft was safe for ferry flight to Three Rivers Airport (HAI). During take-off stage all gauges and instruments were operating in normal parameters. Approximately 4 [minutes] into flight aircraft began popping and back-firing along with power loss, electric fuel pump was turned on without any aid to engine performance. Operator initiated 180[degree] turn for return to airport of departure with airplane descending, operator only option was to land in corn field with soft dirt. Landing touch down speed was approximately 70 mph and at approximately a speed of 20 mph front wheel sank into dirt causing front wheel to break off, then front of engine cowling was riding on the dirt digging in, causing airplane to flip over." Subsequent to the accident, the pilot reported that water was found in the fuel sumps. Airplane logbooks show the last recorded annual inspection was completed on August 23, 2000. An examination of the wreckage detected no engine or airframe pre-impact anomalies. Federal Aviation Regulation 21.197 Special flight permits, in-part stated, "(a) A special flight permit may be issued for an aircraft that may not currently meet applicable airworthiness requirements but is capable of safe flight, for the following purposes: (1) Flying the aircraft to a base where repairs, alterations, or maintenance are to be performed, or to a point of storage." There was no ferry flight permit on file with the Federal Aviation Administration for this flight.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate preflight preparation which failed to detect contaminated fuel that led to a loss of engine power. The unsuitable terrain encountered was a factor.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI05LA079
- Event ID
- 20050329X00379
- Case number
- CHI05LA079
- 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: eefa2205c7d74605a89b1b86e529000262f6f33a6c8fb3f73b341dd44e06c0a8; retrieved 2026-09-22T06:09:25.366Z.