SP Aircraft Cessna T210K accident
Cessna T210K · Accident: fuel starvation en route
From Spokane International Airport (GEG) to Boise Air Terminal/Gowen Field (BOI)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR16LA008
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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 T210K
- 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
- N8273M
- Operator
- SP Aircraft
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Spokane International Airport (GEG), Spokane, WATo Boise Air Terminal/Gowen Field (BOI), Boise, ID
- Aircraft age
- About 45 years (built 1970)
- 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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
- Fuel starvation
- 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 › Fluids/miscellaneous hardware
- Personnel issues › Psychological
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that he departed on a time-sensitive cargo flight with about 30 gallons of fuel in each tank. The flight was uneventful until the airplane was about 650 ft above ground level and about 2 miles from the destination airport when the engine experienced a total loss of power. The pilot attempted to troubleshoot the loss of power by activating both fuel boost pumps, but he did not verify the fuel selector position or attempt an engine restart, and the engine power was not restored. He configured the airplane to land on an interstate adjacent to the airport and activated the landing gear; however, the gear did not extend before the airplane impacted the road.
The pilot reported that he was distracted with some paperwork during the flight and "failed to switch tanks" at the halfway point as he had initially planned. Further, the pilot experienced high workload during the descent due to weather reports and other traffic, and he did not use the descent checklist, which included a task to "manage fuel." Postaccident examination of the fuel system revealed that about 22 gallons of fuel remained in the left fuel tank and that there was no fuel in the right fuel tank. The pilot reported no mechanical failures or malfunctions with the engine that would have precluded normal operation. Further, examination of the airplane revealed no anomalies to the landing gear extension and locking mechanisms. According to the airplane manufacturer, the landing gear hydraulic pump is powered by the engine; therefore, it is likely that the landing gear failed to deploy as a result of the power loss.
Probable cause
The pilot’s improper in-flight fuel management due to distraction and self-induced pressure, which resulted in fuel starvation and a total loss of engine power. Contributing to the accident was the pilot’s failure to conduct the descent checklist, which included a task to manage fuel.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR16LA008
- Event ID
- 20151013X20937
- Case number
- WPR16LA008
- 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: f682820aec31cbb5515b97bb6ccfff585cb1d969e14e0f6ff13a3331de2b1f9c; retrieved 2026-09-16T02:52:48.926Z.