WPR12LA373 · Cessna P210 N
Cessna P210 N · Accident: loss of engine power (total) on approach
From Bellingham International Airport (KBLI) to Alturas Municipal Airport (KAAT)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR12LA373
- 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 P210 N
- 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
- C-GFCK
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Bellingham International Airport (KBLI), Bellingham, WATo Alturas Municipal Airport (KAAT), Alturas, 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
- Approach · VFR go-around
- 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 systems
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was making an approach for landing to runway 21 when he noticed that the wind was favoring runway 03. He executed a go-around and maneuvered to approach runway 03 for landing. During the approach to runway 03, he decided that he was too high to make a safe landing, and he executed another go-around. The pilot described the airplane's climb performance as "sluggish." The pilot raised the flaps when the airplane was between 600 and 800 feet above ground level, and, shortly after, the engine experienced a total loss of power. The pilot did not attempt to turn on the auxiliary fuel pump, switch fuel tanks, or adjust the mixture; he stated that the fuel selector was in the "both" position. The pilot executed a forced landing on a nearby highway, which resulted in damage to the right wing and left horizontal stabilizer. During the airplane's recovery, a total of 22 gallons of fuel was obtained from three of the four fuel tanks. The fourth fuel tank had been breached during the accident sequence, and recovery personnel observed fuel draining from the damaged tank. The postaccident engine examination revealed no evidence of mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation. The airplane was climbing in conditions conducive to fuel vapor formation. According to the Pilot's Operating Handbook, when such conditions exist, it may be necessary to use the auxiliary fuel pump to attain or stabilize the fuel flow required for the type of climb being performed.
Probable cause
A loss of engine power due to fuel vaporization. Contributing to the accident was the pilot’s failure to use the auxiliary fuel pump when he noticed a degradation in the airplane’s climb performance.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR12LA373
- Event ID
- 20120828X44643
- Case number
- WPR12LA373
- 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: 1c222fb1afb5b7fe7faa504d0b4074684de1d3483bef6a8f4cad37f9dcba39ef; retrieved 2026-09-15T19:32:48.610Z.