WPR10LA331 · Cessna 210 K
Cessna 210 K · Accident: loss of engine power (total) en route
From Ellerport Airport (WN54) to Ellerport Airport (WN54)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR10LA331
- 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 K
- 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
- N8133G
- Operator
- Michael D Heller · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Ellerport Airport (WN54), Newman, WATo Ellerport Airport (WN54), Newman, WA
- 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
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that after leveling off at cruise altitude the engine suddenly quit producing power. He immediately switched the fuel selector from the right fuel tank to the left fuel tank, pushed the throttle and mixture to full open and full rich, and activated the electric boost pump. Unable to restart the engine, the pilot initially turned toward a local airport but realized that he couldn't make that airport; he then diverted to an interstate highway. During the touchdown between cars, the airplane veered against the center guard rail and skidded about 500 feet before coming to rest in the median. The left wing, empennage and left horizontal stabilizer were substantially damaged. During the postaccident examination of the engine, no mechanical malfunctions or failures were noted that would have precluded normal operation. The reason for the loss of engine power could not be determined.
Probable cause
The loss of engine power during cruise flight for undetermined reasons.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR10LA331
- Event ID
- 20100708X22551
- Case number
- WPR10LA331
- 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. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2010-07-05.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 56c1e365661acd30a1bea3fb9dc057ea67b82b700b3df03866b0ad132dc06b5f; retrieved 2026-09-15T14:38:23.427Z.