CEN15LA015 · Cessna P210N N
Cessna P210N N · Accident: loss of engine power (total) en route
From West Memphis Municipal Airport (AWM) to West Memphis Municipal Airport (AWM)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN15LA015
- 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 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
- N731QV
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From West Memphis Municipal Airport (AWM), West Memphis, ARTo West Memphis Municipal Airport (AWM), West Memphis, AR
- Aircraft age
- About 34 years (built 1980)
- 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)
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Wire
- 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 as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Shortly after takeoff, the manifold pressure dropped. The private pilot then turned the airplane back to the airport. He saw smoke coming from under the engine cowl, and the engine stopped producing power while the airplane was on short final and about 800 ft above ground level. The airplane impacted power lines before landing in a grassy area short of the runway.
Holes were observed in the top of the engine crankcase. Disassembly of the engine revealed all the crankshaft's connecting rod journals and connecting rods displayed signs of thermal distress and discoloration associated with engine operation without sufficient oil. All six cylinder bays exhibited mechanical damage consistent with an oil starvation event. The engine and component examinations did not identify any anomalies that would have precipitated an oil starvation event and subsequent engine failure. The No. 2 piston was fractured into numerous pieces. The area adjacent to the broken connecting rod displayed surface coloration and oxide formation consistent with exposure to very high temperatures. The engine had experienced a previous "hydraulic lock" event about 1 1/2 years before the accident, but it could not be determined if damage sustained during that event caused the catastrophic failure of the No. 2 piston.
Probable cause
A catastrophic engine failure due to an oil starvation event for reasons that could not be determined based on the available evidence.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN15LA015
- Event ID
- 20141017X30721
- Case number
- CEN15LA015
- 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: eaa3a90ccf1cf11e12520b7d8f9a111d77eb577da9e783a0599fb2f6c658dd1c; retrieved 2026-09-16T01:51:41.781Z.