WPR12FA222 · Cessna P210N
Cessna P210N · Accident: loss of engine power (partial) en route
From Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport (PHX) to Van Nuys Airport (VNY)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR12FA222
- 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 P210N
- 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
- N732JL
- Operator
- Roth James e
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport (PHX), Phoenix, AZTo Van Nuys Airport (VNY), Van Nuys, 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 · descent
- 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 (partial)
- 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 during a cross-country flight, as he descended below 9,000 feet mean sea level, he encountered a severe surging of the engine and a reduction in power. The pilot declared an emergency, and he was advised by air traffic control of the two nearest airports. The pilot maneuvered the airplane towards one of the airports. Due to the reduction in power and loss of altitude, the pilot determined that he would be unable to land at the airport, and, therefore, he elected to land on a city street. The airplane impacted trees and a telephone pole before coming to rest inverted in the front yard of a residence.
Postaccident examination of the airframe revealed no pre-impact mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation. The engine was removed from the airframe and prepared for an engine test run. The engine was started and operated for several minutes at various power settings. Further testing of components from the turbocharger system revealed no anomalies that would have precluded normal operation. The cause of the surging and partial loss of engine power could not be determined.
Probable cause
The partial loss of engine power during descent for reasons that could not be determined because postaccident examination of the engine did not reveal any anomalies that would have precluded normal operation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR12FA222
- Event ID
- 20120522X10407
- Case number
- WPR12FA222
- 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 2012-05-22.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 5eb8741924efaf4d161f224df9ccf99e0b20602ad59bf59feb100f988388469b; retrieved 2026-09-15T18:13:20.846Z.