WPR20CA158 · Cessna P210 N
Cessna P210 N · Accident: loss of engine power (total) on approach
From Montgomery-Gibbs Executive Airport (MYF) to Evanston-Uinta County Airport-Burns Field (EVW)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR20CA158
- 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
- N5404W
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Montgomery-Gibbs Executive Airport (MYF), San Diego, CATo Evanston-Uinta County Airport-Burns Field (EVW), Evanston, WY
- Aircraft age
- About 39 years (built 1981)
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern final
- 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
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that after completing the descent/approach checklist, he turned on the auxiliary fuel pump and switched from the left fuel tank to the right fuel tank. While on final approach, the pilot reported that he neglected to turn off the auxiliary fuel pump. When he made a slight power reduction, the engine flooded and lost power. The airplane subsequently touched down in the grass short of and to the right of the runway. During the landing roll, the right wing collided with a fence pole. The right wing was substantially damaged. The manufacturer's before landing checklist requires the auxiliary fuel pump in the 'OFF' position during landing. A caution follows: "Failure to turn the auxiliary fuel pump off may result in a complete power loss at reduced throttle settings due to an excessively rich mixture." The pilot reported that he had modified the before landing checklist which omitted the fuel pump switch position.
Probable cause
The pilots failure to switch the fuel pump to the 'OFF' position during landing, resulting in a loss of engine power and subsequent collision with a fence during landing. Contributing to the accident was a modified before landing checklist which omitted the fuel pump switch position.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR20CA158
- Event ID
- 20200601X10600
- Case number
- WPR20CA158
- 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: d6be6d7cb37eaaf02823790e9168101367f4c57c2c45987c7bc5af38ab4d8178; retrieved 2026-09-16T11:42:48.672Z.