WPR10LA248 · Cessna 210 F
Cessna 210 F · Accident: loss of engine power (total) en route
From Colusa County Airport (O08) to Bob's Flying Service Inc Airport (32CL)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR10LA248
- 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 210 F
- 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
- N580TP
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Colusa County Airport (O08), Colusa, CATo Bob's Flying Service Inc Airport (32CL), Knights Landing, CA
- 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
- 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
- Loss of engine power (total)
- 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 from the NTSB case API, not marked as estimated; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During cruise flight, the pilot heard a loud “bang” and immediately observed oil coming from the engine cowling. The pilot subsequently initiated a forced landing and struck trees. A postaccident examination of the engine revealed two holes in the top of the crankcase between the Nos. 1 and 2 cylinders. The No. 2 connecting rod was visibly bent and no longer attached to the crankshaft. The end cap and a section of the yoke were separated and found outside of the engine case.
The No. 2 cylinder piston, pin, connecting rod, and separated sections were sent to the National Transportation Safety Board’s materials laboratory for examination. A materials specialist determined that the damage to the connecting rod was a result of a high-cycle fatigue fracture. The fatigue in the location of the connecting rod would likely occur due to looseness in the connecting rod bearing area due to wear or damage to the bearing, small journal diameter, or insufficient clamping force from the connecting rod bolts. The bearing pieces did not show signs of significant wear and the journal diameter was not known. However, fretting was observed on the clamping surface of the connecting rod cap, which likely indicates that the connecting rod bolt had insufficient clamping force.
Probable cause
Insufficient clamping force to the connecting rod bolt, which resulted in looseness in the connecting rod bearing area that led to the fatigue fracture of the connecting rod and a subsequent loss of engine power.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR10LA248
- Event ID
- 20100520X44051
- Case number
- WPR10LA248
- 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: 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 2010-05-19.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 1effe0cf7da23ef98ff95fcf423919a278b00db3bc80bd25fba891ba60e085d9; retrieved 2026-09-15T14:09:06.305Z.