MIA08FA027 · Cessna T210N
Cessna T210N · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Charleston Executive Airport (JZI) to Clark Regional Airport (JVY)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA08FA027
- 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
- 2 · 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
- Instrument 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
- N5431C
- Operator
- Henry D. Garretson · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Charleston Executive Airport (JZI), Charleston, SCTo Clark Regional Airport (JVY), Jeffersonville, IN
- 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
- Approach
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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 › Aircraft control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Design stress limits of aircraft, exceeded
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
A review of recorded radar data showed that the airplane was heading northwest towards the destination airport, descending through an altitude of 6,800 feet mean sea level (msl) at a constant rate of about 650 feet-per-minute, when it began to make a subtle turn to the north. About 32 seconds later, the airplane continued to turn and descend at a constant rate, reaching a maximum bank angle of about 40 to 50 degrees and exceeding the structural cruise speed by 20 knots calibrated airspeed (13 knots less than never exceed speed). Trajectory calculations showed that a breakup of the airplane occurred about 5 seconds later. The debris field heading was in a southeasterly direction located in close proximity to the last three radar returns. A weather study revealed that based on available weather data at the time of the accident, the airplane was likely in visual meteorological conditions until just prior to the breakup. With cloud tops to 13,000 feet, the possibility existed that the airplane entered instrument meteorological conditions. All of the fracture surfaces examined exhibited features consistent with static overload and no evidence of metal fatigue.
Probable cause
the pilot exceeded the design stress limits of the airplane, which resulted in the in-flight break up. Contributing to the accident was the pilot's loss of control in-flight due to spatial disorientation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA08FA027
- Event ID
- 20071218X01970
- Case number
- MIA08FA027
- 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: c73c9f480126d154c123af217e6b7aac5cc60a55d1e3a3c168a3b3ffa3a77238; retrieved 2026-09-20T16:04:13.556Z.