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WPR24LA314 · Cessna U206G

19 Sept 2024 · West Sacramento, CA, United States

Cessna U206G · Accident: loss of engine power (total) en route

From Sacramento Mather Airport (KMHR) to Watts Woodland Airport (O41)

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Event

NTSB case
WPR24LA314
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 U206G

Aircraft type
Cessna 206
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
N6522Z
Operator
Unknown
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From Sacramento Mather Airport (KMHR), Mather, CATo Watts Woodland Airport (O41), Woodland, CA
Aircraft age
About 43 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
En route
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

Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.

NTSB narrative

While the airplane was en route to a local airport, the engine suddenly lost power and the airplane began to shake. The pilot noted rapidly decreasing cylinder head temperature readings on most cylinders and the loss of the temperature reading for the No. 4 cylinder. He turned the airplane toward the nearest airport, and the engine then lost all power. The pilot realized that the airplane would not glide to the nearest airport and selected a field to land in. He initiated an emergency landing to the field and the airplane nosed over, coming to rest inverted. Postaccident examination of the engine revealed that the No. 4 fuel injection assembly tube was not contained in its retention clamp, and the elastomer sleeve that cushions the clamped tube was displaced from its normal position. Examination of the tube during disassembly revealed a fracture where it intersected the shank of the ferrule that had been brazed onto the inboard end of the tube. Further examination of the fracture at the NTSB laboratory revealed that the fracture surfaces were consistent with fatigue and that the elastomer sleeve displayed wear marks consistent with previous clamping. The engine’s fuel flow divider was tested with the five intact fuel injection assembly tubes from the accident engine and one surrogate tube for the No. 4 position. The flow test failed when the No. 4 tube was removed to simulate the fracture. The investigation could not determine how long the No. 4 fuel injection assembly tube had been displaced from the retention clamp before the tube’s in-flight failure and subsequent engine failure.

Probable cause

Failure of the No. 4 cylinder fuel injection assembly tube and subsequent total loss of engine power.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record WPR24LA314
Event ID
20240930195224
Case number
WPR24LA314
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, coordinates, 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: 3868b4d48cf17f956d09160f91138576b714c2dcf5320015f4570610ed2bf41d; retrieved 2026-09-16T19:19:57.078Z.