CEN10LA256 · Cessna P206B
Cessna P206B · Accident: fuel contamination on approach
From Kestrel Airpark (K1T7) to Kestrel Airpark (K1T7)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's departure or destination. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN10LA256
- 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 P206B
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 206
- 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
- N50LP
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route Narrative disagrees
- From Kestrel Airpark (K1T7), Kestrel Airpark, TXTo Kestrel Airpark (K1T7), Kestrel Airpark, 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
- Approach
- Defining eventThe 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
- Fuel contamination
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft power plant
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot and passenger were returning to the airport after performing a maintenance test flight. While descending through 2,500 feet mean sea level, the airplane's engine abruptly lost total power. The pilot switched fuel tanks and attempted to restart the engine but was unsuccessful. He then selected an open area and performed a forced landing. During the landing the airplane impacted terrain resulting in substantial damage to the fuselage and wing spar. During recovery of the airplane, the recovery crew drained approximately 10 gallons from the right fuel tank and found the left fuel tank empty. An examination of the airplane's fuel system revealed debris partially obstructing the filter of the fuel mixture unit. No other filters contained this debris and the source of the debris could not be determined. The fuel lines were opened and absent of fuel from the auxiliary fuel pump to the fuel manifold. Fuel was observed within the fuel manifold.
Probable cause
A loss of engine power due to fuel contamination.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN10LA256
- Event ID
- 20100518X00958
- Case number
- CEN10LA256
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
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: bae3d3bc54c8b2ab3e401fc6a172793473093ae65773454fb66597a79c0243dd; retrieved 2026-09-15T14:07:00.880Z.