CEN20LA172 · Cessna T210L
Cessna T210L · Accident: fuel starvation during initial climb
From Fort Worth Spinks Airport (KFWS) to Fort Worth Spinks Airport (KFWS)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN20LA172
- 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 T210L
- 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
- N2074S
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Fort Worth Spinks Airport (KFWS), Fort Worth, TXTo Fort Worth Spinks Airport (KFWS), Fort Worth, TX
- Aircraft age
- About 45 years (built 1975)
- 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 starvation
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Fluids/miscellaneous hardware
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot had just departed the runway for a second circuit in the traffic pattern. Shortly thereafter, he declared an emergency but did not indicate the nature of the emergency. A witness said he heard the "loud strong engine sound suddenly and drastically reduce to either power off or a low idle." He saw the airplane fly level for a few seconds then descend slowly toward the ground; the wings banked slightly one way, then the other. He stated that the airplane continued flying straight while descending, that the wings began to rock slightly, and that when the airplane was about 10 to 20 ft above the tree line, its “rate of descent accelerated into the trees." The airplane struck tree-covered terrain and impacted the ground about 1/2 mile south of the runway. A postcrash fire ensued and destroyed the airplane.
Postaccident examination of the engine revealed no anomalies that would have precluded normal operations. The damage signatures on the propeller were consistent with little to no power at the time of impact. The examination revealed that the inboard portion of the right wing was partially consumed by the fire, but the remainder of the wing exhibited no fire damage. The right fuel tank area of the wing appeared undamaged, and the right fuel tank was empty. The left wing was consumed by fire, and given the extent of fire damage, the fuel tank likely contained fuel. The fuel selector valve appeared to be selected to the left tank but was about 5° counterclockwise past the left tank position and was not secure in the detent. The engine-driven fuel pump’s driveshaft was intact and there was no fuel in the fuel pump. Based on the available evidence, it is likely that the engine lost power due to fuel starvation. It is unknown if the pilot selected the left tank before takeoff or after the loss of engine power. With the fuel selector valve not placed in the detent for the left fuel tank, fuel would not be able to flow from the tank to the engine and the engine would have lost power.
Probable cause
The loss of engine power due to fuel starvation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN20LA172
- Event ID
- 20200507X73856
- Case number
- CEN20LA172
- 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, 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: af878caf725b9107d180477ddeaedfcdd1349330c057eddb7d7d2c2599ee7020; retrieved 2026-09-15T07:14:18.776Z.