Cessna T210N N546BC

Summary

On 19 November 2005 at about 22:03 local time, a Cessna T210N registered N546BC was involved in an accident near Dana Point, California, United States. 4 people were on board and 4 died. The aircraft was destroyed. The NTSB has published a probable cause for this accident; it is quoted in full below.

Date

19 November 2005 at 22:03

Classification

Accident

Location

Dana Point, California, United States

Coordinates

33.4167, -117.6917

Aircraft

Cessna T210N

Registration

N546BC

Category

Airplane

Engines

1

Operator

Not recorded

Operating rule

Part 91: General Aviation

Purpose of flight

Personal

Phase of flight

Not recorded

Route

San Diego → Santa Ana

Aircraft damage

Destroyed

Weather

VMC

Light

Day

NTSB number

LAX06FA043

4 people died.

The pilot's inability to maintain aircraft control, which resulted in a loss of airspeed and a stall/spin. The inability of the pilot to maintain control of the airplane was likely due to an incapacitating cardiac event.

Quoted verbatim from the NTSB record. This site does not paraphrase or interpret it.

Read the full NTSB narrative

The airplane impacted the ocean following a departure from controlled cruise flight. The airplane had decelerated from 120 knots to approximately 60 knots while maintaining an altitude of 3,500 feet mean sea level (msl), then descended as rapidly as 7,000 feet per minute, finally spiraling toward the ocean in a corkscrew manner before it impacted the water. No pre-accident anomalies were noted with any systems examined, and no distress calls or communications preceded or followed the upset. The autopsy report on the 51-year-old airline transport pilot was consistent with a condition known as left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH), a substantially thickened main heart chamber. It also noted moderate to severe coronary artery disease with evidence of at least one prior small heart attack. The combination of coronary artery disease and LVH would have substantially increased the risk for sudden cardiac death in this pilot. There was no evidence that the pilot was aware of his heart disease. The behavior of the aircraft cannot be explained by any reasonable scenario in which the 11,500-hour pilot was deliberately controlling the aircraft. Therefore, it seems likely that the pilot was unable to control the aircraft, an inability that can reasonably be explained by an incapacitating cardiac event.

Quoted verbatim from the NTSB record.