MIA06LA067 · Cirrus SR20
Cirrus SR20 · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) on approach
From Pompano Beach Airpark (PMP) to Orlando Executive Airport (ORL)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA06LA067
- 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
Cirrus SR20
- Aircraft type
- Cirrus SR20
- 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
- N777YM
- Operator
- Scott Roth
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Pompano Beach Airpark (PMP), Pompano, FLTo Orlando Executive Airport (ORL), Orlando, FL
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- 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 pattern downwind
- First occurrenceThe 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
- Total loss of engine power (mechanical 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
- Fluid, oil › Low level
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot said that he was on the downwind leg for runway 07 when he observed the engine oil pressure caution light illuminate. Shortly thereafter, the engine lost power. He declared an emergency and landed on runway 13, touching down two-thirds down the runway. The airplane overran the end of the runway and struck a ditch. Eight hours before the accident flight, the owner/operator attempted to determine why there was a low oil quantity and oil was being vented out of the crankcase breather. An airframe and powerplant (A&P) mechanic examined the engine and could find no oil leaks. He also performed a cylinder compression check as outlined in Teledyne Continental Motors' (TCM) Service Bulletins M89-9, "Excessive Crankcase Pressures." No discrepancies were noted. The engine, a Teledyne Continental IO-360-ES (serial number 1393), was disassembled and examined. According to TCM's report, "The connecting rod assemblies exhibited thermal discoloration. The connecting rod bearings exhibited lubrication distress and thermal smearing of the surface babbit, exposing the copper layer. The number four piston head exhibited preignition/detonation damage. The thermal damage had penetrated through the interior of the piston. Portions of the piston rings were missing from thermal damage. The piston pin was intact. The pin plug was damaged from extreme thermal exposure." The magnetos were functionally checked and tested satisfactorily. The 12 spark plugs were also tested. Core nose cracks on five of the 12 spark plugs were attributed to detonation "but did not cause any side effects detrimental to normal engine operation." TCM's Service Bulletin M89-9, entitled "Excessive Crankcase Pressures," requires only a "differential pressure test of the cylinders" to check for cylinder preignition/detonation and excessive blow-by, and does not contain the verbiage contained in TCM's SB03-3, "Differential Pressure Test and Borescope Inspection Procedures for Cylinders."
Probable cause
Catastrophic engine failure due to a low oil level brought about by excessive blow-by and cylinder detonation. Contributing factors in this accident were the inadequate instructions contained in Service Bulletin M89-9 and the ditch.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA06LA067
- Event ID
- 20060324X00341
- Case number
- MIA06LA067
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
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. 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: cb33c3596c98b37f2868a33e25223a42d2d7d57f6b063fe3407a697f16ae8a89; retrieved 2026-09-22T05:03:56.537Z.