WPR20LA009 · Cessna 206 H
County Of San Joaquin Cessna 206 H · Accident: loss of engine power (total) during initial climb
From Stockton Metropolitan Airport (SCK) to Stockton Metropolitan Airport (SCK)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR20LA009
- 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 206 H
- 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
- N11379
- Operator
- County Of San Joaquin
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Stockton Metropolitan Airport (SCK), Stockton, CATo Stockton Metropolitan Airport (SCK), Stockton, CA
- Aircraft age
- About 20 years (built 1999)
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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 power plant
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The flight instructor and pilot receiving instruction were departing on a flight to practice instrument approaches. About 150 ft above ground level (agl), the engine “surged” then “smoothed out.” The airplane continued to climb, but the pilots elected to conduct a precautionary landing. The pilot continued the climb and made a left turn for the traffic pattern. During the turn, the engine lost total power at 380 ft agl and the instructor took control of the airplane. He landed the airplane in an empty lot; the airplane continued through a perimeter fence and impacted a semi-trailer parked along an adjacent roadway. The airplane came to rest nose down against the fence and semi-trailer, resulting in substantial damage to the left wing and forward fuselage.
The postaccident airframe and engine examination revealed low fuel pressure at the fuel injectors into the cylinders. The electric fuel pump tested normally; however, low fuel pressure was noted exiting the fuel servo. The fuel servo was removed and functionally tested. The fuel flow tested slightly below manufacturer’s specifications; however, it still would have provided adequate fuel for normal operation. A teardown of the fuel servo’s metering section did not reveal any anomalies. The reason for the loss of engine power could not be determined.
Probable cause
A total loss of engine power after takeoff for reasons that could not be determined based on the available information.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR20LA009
- Event ID
- 20191017X22012
- Case number
- WPR20LA009
- 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: local date, investigation status, cause areas. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2019-10-18.
- API snapshot SHA-256: d2978cf7941754787068bae7bc7118ca8e3a47e9e4775d7ac31e7f75d2fbbf48; retrieved 2026-09-16T10:24:17.918Z.