CEN20LA365 · Cessna T210 N
Cessna T210 N · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From City of Colorado Springs Municipal Airport (COS) to Meadow Lake Airport (FLY)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN20LA365
- 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 T210 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
- N64EM
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From City of Colorado Springs Municipal Airport (COS), Colorado Springs, COTo Meadow Lake Airport (FLY), Peyton, CO
- 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
- 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 control in flight
- 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 › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was returning to the airport in and entered the airplane into the traffic pattern between two airplanes that flew slower. The flight instructor in the leading airplane stated that there was not much separation between the airplanes, and the pilot in the trailing airplane noted that the leading airplane appeared to be significantly slower than the accident airplane. The pilot in the trailing airplane stated that the accident airplane flew an extended downwind leg and that, while the accident airplane was turning final, it overshot the runway, increased its bank, and pitched up slightly. The pilot in the trailing airplane stated the accident pilot made all “proper” radio calls, including for the final turn, without any mention of malfunctions. A witness on the ground saw the airplane’s wings “wiggle”; he estimated the airplane was about 30 to 50 ft above the ground when it nosed down, then stalled, dropped “straight” in, and impacted terrain. He also stated that he did not hear any engine sounds.
The trailing pilot’s account of the events was consistent with a video playback of radar data.
No preimpact anomalies were found during postaccident examinations of the airframe and engine that would have precluded normal operation of the airplane, and the airplane had sufficient fuel onboard. Thus, it is likely that the pilot entered the traffic pattern behind a slower airplane, and, in an attempt to add more space between his airplane and the one ahead, he reduced the speed and increased airplane pitch to the point where it exceeded critical angle of attack, which resulted in an aerodynamic stall as he turned onto the final leg of the traffic pattern.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain adequate airspeed and the exceedance of the airplane’s critical angle of attack during the airplane’s turn to final, resulting in an aerodynamic stall.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN20LA365
- Event ID
- 20200826X61854
- Case number
- CEN20LA365
- 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: 3762d0a3ad23d20889bf199a426a15c24f83cf29000afb37e812281108c5543a; retrieved 2026-09-15T07:18:45.178Z.