DFW07FA073 · Cessna 210K
Cessna 210K · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water while maneuvering
From 5R3 · Lago Vista, TX to Sugar Land Regional Airport (SGR)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's location. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- DFW07FA073
- 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
- 1 · 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 210K
- 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
- N1162M
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 5R3 · Lago Vista, TXTo Sugar Land Regional Airport (SGR), 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 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
- Maneuvering
- 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
- In flight collision with terrain/water
- 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
- Pilot in command › Clearance, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The non-instrument rated private pilot departed a non-towered airport on a 131-nautical mile cross-country flight. About 55 miles from the departure airport, he reported an autopilot/runaway trim problem to an air traffic controller. During the return to his departure airport, the pilot told the controller, that he was pulling circuit breakers, and that he did not need any assistance. Additionally, the pilot reported that this problem had been an intermittent problem in the past. Review of radar data revealed the airplane's normal departure and 180-degree turn back to its departure airport. The radar data also revealed that the airplane's departure track as a straight-line, with little deviation in altitude or airspeed. When the airplane returned to its departure airport, it descended to an altitude of 2,200 feet mean sea level (msl), and proceeded northwest, just beyond the airport. For the next 52-minutes, the airplane was observed on radar executing a series of irregular, non-uniform circuits, that included left and right turns, climbs and descents. The first series of circuits were made within about 5-miles of the airport before the last series, which were made within about a 10-mile radius of the airport. There were no reported witnesses to the accident. Emergency personnel located the crash site, approximately 1 mile short of the approach end of the active runway, shortly after the airplane disappeared from radar. Impact marks on the respective trees indicate the airplane impacted the trees and terrain in a near wings level attitude at cruise speed. At the time of the accident, the airplane was configured with the flaps retracted. The position of the landing gear could not be determined. Examination of the airplane and engine did not disclose any evidence of any malfunction or pre-impact anomaly. The elevator trim tab drive mechanism measured 2-inches, which is consistent with about a 15-degree tab up (nose down) pitch setting. A post-crash fire consumed most of the airplane. The reason for control flight into the ground could not be determined. The winds at the time of the mishap were reported from 180-degrees at 14 knots, gusting to 19 knots.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain clearance from terrain. A factor was the pilot's diverted attention with a reported autopilot malfunction.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DFW07FA073
- Event ID
- 20070223X00217
- Case number
- DFW07FA073
- 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. 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: 44d325c5d760b710fbfe4b6214438fe3dbb00e201bd22b1df359978e004787ec; retrieved 2026-09-20T16:50:01.730Z.