ERA17LA098 · Cessna P210 N
Cessna P210 N · Accident: loss of engine power (total) en route
From Allentown Queen City Municipal Airport (XLL) to Erie-Ottawa International Airport (PCW)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's location. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA17LA098
- 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
- N4796P
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Allentown Queen City Municipal Airport (XLL), Allentown, PATo Erie-Ottawa International Airport (PCW), Erie-Ottawa, OH
- Aircraft age
- About 39 years (built 1978)
- 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
- 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
- Tree(s)
- 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
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The private pilot reported that he did not perform a preflight inspection, including sumping the fuel tanks, before departing for a cross-country flight with full fuel tanks. When the airplane reached 12,500 ft mean sea level and the pilot reduced engine rpm for cruise flight, the engine suddenly, and without warning, stopped producing power. The pilot tried several times to restart the engine to no avail and subsequently conducted a forced landing, during which the airplane collided with trees. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the fuselage, both wings, and the tail section.
Postaccident examination of the airplane revealed that both wing fuel tanks were breached and that the fuel strainer drains for each wing were corroded due to exposure to moisture. Similar corrosion was also observed in the engine's fuel pump and fuel metering unit. The airplane had been sitting outside exposed to snow before and after it was recovered from the accident site. Given that the fuel system had been breached, it could not be determined when the corrosion occurred or whether the pilot's failure to sump the fuel tanks contributed to the loss of power. Examinations of the airframe and engine revealed no evidence of any preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation, and the reason for the loss of engine power could not be determined.
Probable cause
A total loss of engine power for reasons that could not be determined because postaccident examinations of the engine and airframe did not reveal any preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA17LA098
- Event ID
- 20170130X55007
- Case number
- ERA17LA098
- 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: db1329644f19b987c1db62150a7288c52ddacc649bc53a79982f81f42b53b71f; retrieved 2026-09-16T04:58:52.073Z.