Cessna 210 N123CE accident near Needles, California

Probable cause

A loss of engine power for undetermined reasons due to a lack of available evidence.

NTSB analysis

The pilot departed on a cross-country flight with a self-induced pressure to return home in dark night conditions, despite a lack of recent experience flying at night. After departing on the first leg of his flight, he lost his geographic orientation after he failed to configure his navigation equipment before departure. As a result, he landed and refueled at an airport 150 nm south of his perceived location. The pilot then departed toward the south and performed a series of climbs and descents, eventually flying into Mexico airspace. He subsequently completed another series of climbs and descents in the 30 minutes that he flew over Mexico airspace before he reentered US airspace.

Approximately 1 hour later, and nearly 4 hours into the flight, the engine lost all power. The pilot immediately switched fuel tanks and engaged the high boost pump, which restarted the engine. About 15 minutes later the engine lost all power again. The pilot made a forced landing in dirt, and the airplane nosed over and came to rest inverted.

Examination of the airplane did not reveal any mechanical anomalies. Performance computations showed that the engine would have burned about 40 gallons of fuel during the accident flight. The fuel tanks were not breached, and the fuel lines and connections did not indicate a fuel leak. Further, there were no indications that fuel had been expelled from the tanks at the accident site. The pilot’s fuel management practice was to switch fuel tanks when they were half empty, which would have resulted in fuel starvation should he have omitted this task item only once during the accident flight. This oversight may have occurred during the accident flight as the pilot was distracted trying to configure his navigation device to establish his geographic position and return home. While the airplane had sufficient fuel onboard at the time of the power loss to continue the flight, the investigation was unable to establish how much fuel was in each wing or why the engine lost power due to a lack of available evidence.

Text from the NTSB. Open the NTSB docket for WPR20LA101 for the full record.