ATL06CA042 · Cessna T210N
Cessna T210N · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Richard B Russell Airport (KRMG) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL06CA042
- 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 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
- N2134U
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Richard B Russell Airport (KRMG), Rome, GATo not recorded
- 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
- 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 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 › Fuel management, 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 stated that while in cruise flight she looked at the fuel gauges and the right fuel tank was empty and the left fuel tank was approximately a quarter full. The primer was stuck in the out position. She and the passenger attempted to push the primer in with negative results. She then decided to fly back towards the departure airport and while en-route, the engine lost power. The pilot stated that the airplane was approximately 1000 feet above the ground and she elected not to attempt an engine restart. She made a 180 degree turn and initiated a forced landing to an open field. The airplane landed half way down the field. She attempted to stop the airplane, but the airplane skidded through a barb wire fence, the left wing clipped a tree, and the airplane spun around 180-degrees. The airplane came to rest facing north. Examination of the airplane found the airplane contained no usable fuel and the primer handle was unlocked. A review of the primer's design drawings found that there are two check valves within the primers system which prevent fuel from entering the engine even with the primer in the out position. Fuel can only enter the engine through the action of closing the primer.
Probable cause
The pilot's improper fuel management resulting in a total loss of engine power due to fuel exhaustion.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL06CA042
- Event ID
- 20060327X00349
- Case number
- ATL06CA042
- 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: 3fe743019568bd4ed405c115fdeb3f22a32943dc4b950cbc1d040026cd5c9cc0; retrieved 2026-09-22T05:07:40.782Z.