CEN21LA371 · Cessna 210D
Cessna 210D · Accident: fuel starvation on approach
From Eppley Airfield (KOMA) to West Fargo Municipal Airport (D54)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN21LA371
- 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
- Event fatalities
- Unknown
- 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 210D
- 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
- N3944Y
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Eppley Airfield (KOMA), Omaha, NETo West Fargo Municipal Airport (D54), Fargo, ND
- Aircraft age
- About 57 years (built 1964)
- 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 go-around
- 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
- 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
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was performing a go-around at the destination airport when the airplane lost total engine power and subsequently impacted terrain. Postaccident examination revealed useable fuel in the left-wing fuel tank, and no useable fuel in the right fuel tank. The fuel selector was positioned to the left-wing fuel tank. The fuel vent system was unobstructed. The examination revealed little fuel in the fuel system from the fuel selector to the engine, which was consistent with fuel starvation. The fuel sender resistance values for the left-wing tank indicated that erroneous fuel quantity values would have been displayed at the cockpit fuel gauges. There were no anomalies that would have precluded normal engine operation. Based on the available information, it is likely that the loss of engine power was the result of fuel starvation when the pilot exhausted the fuel supply in the right-wing tank. Although the fuel selector was found selected to the tank that contained fuel, it is likely that the pilot switched fuel tanks following the loss of engine power.
Probable cause
A total loss of engine power due to fuel starvation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN21LA371
- Event ID
- 20210811103685
- Case number
- CEN21LA371
- 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: e5505e07671ae9e7438579852b02085d984fdb175e5ca8aa1faf96bd04a04eae; retrieved 2026-09-16T14:24:20.193Z.