CHI07CA047 · Cessna T210L
Cessna T210L · Accident: partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From St Louis Downtown Airport (CPS) to 3SQ · St. Charles, MO
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI07CA047
- 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 T210L
- 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
- N6864C
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From St Louis Downtown Airport (CPS), Cahokia, ILTo 3SQ · St. Charles, MO
- 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 starvation
- 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 › Starvation
- Pilot in command › Fuel supply, 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 airplane contacted trees and the terrain during an off airport forced landing following a loss of engine power. The pilot reported he was making "slow banking" turns to the left during the flight in order to maneuver around controlled airspace. He reported that during the flight the engine began running rough at which time he noticed the fuel flow dropped from 90 pounds per hour (pph) to 70 pph with a manifold pressure of 24 inches. The pilot reported he turned on the fuel boost pump and switched to the right fuel tank. He stated that the engine power increased, but the fuel flow was still fluctuating between 110 and 80 pph. The pilot stated he then heard the engine stop at which time he switched the fuel selector back to the left tank. The pilot reported the engine regained power, but the fuel flow continued to fluctuate from 85 to below 70 pph. The pilot reported the airplane could not maintain level flight and he began looking for an off airport landing site. He located a large, lit parking lot and descended toward it. During the descent, the pilot realized he was not going to be able to make it to the parking lot, so he located a nearby clearing in which to land. The pilot reported he confirmed the landing gear were extended and he added 10 degrees of flaps prior to landing. He also turned the fuel selector to Off and shut off the master switch prior to touchdown. The nose gear collapsed after contacting the soft terrain and the wingtip contacted trees during the landing roll. Post accident inspection of the airplane failed to reveal any mechanical failure/malfunction that would have resulted in the loss of engine power. The inspection revealed there was less than a pint of fuel remaining in the right fuel tank and approximately seven gallons of fuel in the left fuel tank. No fuel was present in the fuel lines from the fuel pump to the fuel flow valve. The pilot reported he departed with 15 gallons of fuel on board the airplane and that the accident flight lasted approximately 10 minutes.
Probable cause
Fuel starvation due to an inadequate fuel supply. A factor associated with the accident was the soft terrain encountered during the landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI07CA047
- Event ID
- 20070123X00080
- Case number
- CHI07CA047
- 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: local date, investigation status, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2006-12-27.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 4f125c44796007a780499e18c45125979799dc8d816533ab76fe154d3f2c8c2a; retrieved 2026-09-21T18:38:06.987Z.