SEA05LA084 · Cessna T210N
Cessna T210N · Accident: airframe, component or system failure on approach
From Felts Field (SFF) to Glacier Park International Airport (GPI)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA05LA084
- 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
- 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
- N2AK
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Felts Field (SFF), Spokane, WATo Glacier Park International Airport (GPI), Kalispell, MT
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern turn to base
- 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
- Airframe, component or system 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
- Hydraulic system, line › Leak
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, inadequate
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 lowered the landing gear on a 3.5 mile extended left base. He said that he was cleared to land by air traffic control (ATC). He checked the landing gear down indication lights, and when he looked up again, black smoke was coming from the dash. He looked down at the control pedestal and saw smoke and fire; he said black smoke immediately eliminated outside visibility. The pilot said that the passenger reported seeing the runway out his open window. The pilot landed the airplane, which bounced, and on the second touchdown the front nose gear collapsed and the airplane skidded to a stop. He and the passenger exited the airplane, which subsequently was consumed by the ensuing fire. The airplane's maintenance records indicated that the following maintenance had been done since the beginning of the year: 1. On January 28, 2005, the engine was removed and a remanufactured engine installed. 2. On March 18, 2005, an annual inspection was completed. 3. On March 30, 2005, an inverter (located up/behind the instrument panel) was replaced. 4. On April 11, 2005, the altimeter was replaced with an overhauled one. Postaccident investigation of the landing gear hydraulic pump (located up/behind the instrument panel) and its associated tubular plumbing found several fractures and failures. A NTSB metallurgist examined the hydraulic lines and found no evidence of preexisting cracking or fractures; using a scanning electron microscope, he identified typical intergranular features with rounded edges, which are indicative of high temperature overstress failures. A NTSB fire expert examined the main wire bundle from under the instrument panel and said that due to the extent of fire damage, an ignition source for the fire could not be determined.
Probable cause
An airborne fire which was fueled by leaking hydraulic fluid (the ignition source for the fire was undetermined) from the landing gear hydraulic system located under the cockpit instrument panel due to inadequate maintenance from other maintenance personnel. Contributing factors were the hydraulic fluid and the pilot's hard landing due the airplane's control not being possible subsequent to the loss of external visibility caused by smoke in the cockpit.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA05LA084
- Event ID
- 20050425X00500
- Case number
- SEA05LA084
- 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: 171d89f183fd02ddf891157c3f164bda72cad30f0240b4f7e7fdd164242a83e8; retrieved 2026-09-18T15:03:24.493Z.