WPR20LA123 · Cessna TU206 G
Cessna TU206 G · Accident: fuel related during initial climb
From an unrecorded airport to Lincoln Regional Karl Harder Field (LHM)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR20LA123
- 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
- 1 · 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 TU206 G
- 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
- N756TH
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Lincoln Regional Karl Harder Field (LHM), Lincoln Regional Airport, CA
- Aircraft age
- About 42 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
- 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
- Fuel related
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Fluids/miscellaneous hardware
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Shortly after takeoff, at an altitude of about 200 to 300 ft above the ground, the airplane’s engine lost power. The pilot-rated passenger took over the flight controls and performed an emergency landing to a field near the departure airport. During the landing, the airplane impacted terrain and a post-crash fire ensued. A postaccident examination of the airplane revealed water in the fuel manifold valve cavity and corrosion type debris on the internal screen. Witness statements revealed several people associated with the pilot knew water had been accumulating in the fuel tanks due to leaky fuel tank caps, one of which was another pilot who flew the airplane twice in the weeks before the accident. The accident pilot reported that he performed a preflight inspection; however, it is unknown whether he checked the fuel tanks for contamination as the pilot-rated passenger did not observe him during the preflight. Autopsy and toxicology reports revealed the pilot had severe stenosis of his aorta and three coronary arteries and that he was taking hydroxychloroquine, a medication to treat rheumatoid arthritis. Both the cardiovascular disease and medication use placed him at an increased risk for a sudden cardiac event. However, there was no evidence to suggest that occurred and based on the circumstances of this accident, the pilot’s cardiovascular condition and the effects from his use of hydroxychloroquine were not factors in the accident.
Probable cause
The total loss of engine power after takeoff due to water contamination of the fuel.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR20LA123
- Event ID
- 20200418X62255
- Case number
- WPR20LA123
- 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, cause areas. 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: c72e5b69071bc60a41005eb624307ee0d1a37710e1ff45b31cede437bff92daf; retrieved 2026-09-15T07:13:38.959Z.