CEN16LA335 · Cessna U206G
State of Illinois Cessna U206G · Accident: loss of engine power (total) en route
From Abraham Lincoln Capital Airport (SPI) to Abraham Lincoln Capital Airport (SPI)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN16LA335
- 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
- Government
- 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 U206G
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 206
- 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
- N891LL
- Operator
- State of Illinois
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Abraham Lincoln Capital Airport (SPI), Springfield, ILTo Abraham Lincoln Capital Airport (SPI), Springfield, IL
- Aircraft age
- About 30 years (built 1986)
- 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
- Public Aircraft
- 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
- 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
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airline transport pilot and camera operator were conducting an aerial mapping flight. While level at 3,500 ft above ground level, the turbo propeller-equipped airplane experienced a total loss of engine power. The pilot attempted to restart the engine three times without success. During the subsequent forced landing, the airplane struck a berm, which damaged both wings.
Examination of the engine revealed that fuel would not flow to the fuel nozzle until air pressure was bled upstream of the check valve assembly, located between the engine fuel control and the fuel nozzle. After the air pressure was bled and the fuel pump purged, normal fuel flow resumed, indicating that air had entered the fuel system. Because of the check valve assembly design, an in-flight engine restart was not possible after air entered the fuel line, and there was no procedure to clear air from the fuel line while in flight. Examination of the engine and fuel system could not establish a reason for air entering the fuel line.
Probable cause
A total loss of engine power due to air entering the fuel system for reasons that could not be determined based on available information. Contributing to the accident was the pilot’s inability to restart the engine due to the check valve assembly design.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN16LA335
- Event ID
- 20160827X23858
- Case number
- CEN16LA335
- 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: c2356f1dd96a98b837edeadc982bba0c1ecbf83ee9477e871bccc4d94820f54f; retrieved 2026-09-16T04:11:54.525Z.