WPR23LA197 · Cessna 210
Cessna 210 · Accident: powerplant system/component malfunction/failure en route
From Salem-Willamette Valley Airport/McNary Field (SLE) to Willows Glenn County Airport (WLW)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR23LA197
- 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 210
- 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
- N9433T
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Salem-Willamette Valley Airport/McNary Field (SLE), Salem, ORTo Willows Glenn County Airport (WLW), Willows, CA
- Aircraft age
- About 63 years (built 1960)
- 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
- En route · cruise
- 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
- Powerplant system/component malfunction/failure
- 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 › Fluids/miscellaneous hardware
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported the airplane lost engine power during cruise flight following a loss of fuel pressure. The pilot was not able to restart the engine by following the emergency procedures; however, he was able to regain partial power in short bursts by engaging the auxiliary fuel pump. He diverted the airplane for landing, but landed short of the runway after the engine lost all power. The right wing and tailcone were substantially damaged during the landing.
Although the engine appeared functional, it had a history of water entering the fuel system, and there was evidence of water ingestion and corrosion within those engine components. Additionally, the hose that connected the fuel pressure sender to the fuel controller had broken at the fuel controller fitting. Such a failure in flight would have resulted in the loss of fuel pressure observed by the pilot and a leak in the fuel system that would have caused the engine to lose power. No other anomalies were found with the engine or airframe fuel supply system.
The hose was age-degraded, had become hard and brittle, and appeared to have corroded at the fuel controller fitting. The engine and fuel control system did not appear to have been overhauled or replaced in 28 years. Although the manufacturer recommends an overhaul be accomplished every 12 years, there is no requirement under Part 91 operations that the operator abide by the manufacturer’s engine overhaul limits.
Probable cause
A fuel leak caused by an age-degraded fuel pressure sender hose, which resulted in fuel starvation and a loss of engine power. Contributing to the accident was inadequate maintenance.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR23LA197
- Event ID
- 20230522192222
- Case number
- WPR23LA197
- 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: 58b8bb502acd2c560bd0ab19db589a0bc8ab270a4c0e8e5b2cfb23e7bf05e175; retrieved 2026-09-16T17:37:57.333Z.