CEN14LA031 · Cessna T210L
Cessna T210L · Accident: powerplant system/component malfunction/failure en route
From Thomas P Stafford Airport (OJA) to Santa Fe Municipal Airport (SAF)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN14LA031
- 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 T210L
- 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
- N398MA
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Thomas P Stafford Airport (OJA), Weatherford, OKTo Santa Fe Municipal Airport (SAF), Santa Fe, NM
- Aircraft age
- About 37 years (built 1976)
- 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
- 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
- Powerplant system/component malfunction/failure
- 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
The pilot reported that, while in cruise flight, the engine began to surge with intermittent power and that the airplane's speed and the engine's manifold pressure and oil pressure decreased. While the pilot was diverting the airplane to the nearest airport, the engine stopped producing power. The pilot established a glide toward the airport, but, when he realized that the airplane would not be able to reach the airport, he chose to perform a forced landing to a field. During the forced landing, the airplane struck a transmission wire and subsequently collided with terrain. A postaccident examination of the engine revealed that the No. 4 connecting rod had separated from its rod journal and that the rod cap bearing had partially melted into the rod journal. The No. 4 connecting rod cap and cap bolts exhibited signatures consistent with a lack of oil lubrication. No other anomalies were discovered with the engine that would have precluded normal operation. The examinations did not reveal any abnormalities that would have prevented adequate oil lubrication of the No. 4 connecting cap and cap bolts. The reason for the lack of lubrication could not be determined.
Probable cause
The failure of the No. 4 connecting rod due to inadequate oil lubrication.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN14LA031
- Event ID
- 20131030X13855
- Case number
- CEN14LA031
- 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, coordinates. 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: d060c69729d9824478102846918ec5c4e231f649f76c7e32886cfeee0c5a4f92; retrieved 2026-09-15T23:03:41.525Z.