CEN15LA298 · Cirrus Design Corp SR22
Airccs Cirrus Design Corp SR22 · Accident: loss of engine power (total) during initial climb
From George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH) to Austin Bergstrom International Airport (AUS)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN15LA298
- 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 Design Corp SR22
- Aircraft type
- Cirrus SR22
- 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
- N422PB
- Operator
- Airccs
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH), Houston, TXTo Austin Bergstrom International Airport (AUS), Austin, TX
- Aircraft age
- About 8 years (built 2007)
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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 propeller/rotor
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Before the accident flight, maintenance personnel removed the airplane's propeller governor, checked it for proper operation, and reinstalled it on the engine. The airline transport pilot and passenger departed on the business flight. The pilot reported that, during initial climb, he noticed increasing engine temperature, so he reduced engine power to lower the engine temperature. When the airplane was about 900 ft above ground level, the engine lost partial power and, shortly thereafter, lost total power. With no suitable forced landing area, the airframe ballistic parachute system was deployed, and the airplane impacted terrain next to a residence and sustained substantial damage.
Postaccident examination of the engine found that the propeller governor drive gear was fractured, and the gear teeth exhibited damage consistent with the governor drive gear being misaligned. A bench test performed on the governor revealed that it operated within the specified parameters for the unit. The examination also noted the governor washers were improperly stacked; however, this likely did not contribute to the engine failure.
A review of engine performance data for the accident flight revealed that the engine rpm reached at least 3,500 rpm during initial climb, which is 800 rpm over the maximum engine speed; it is likely this overspeed condition occurred as a result of the governor drive gear fracturing. The governor drive gear was likely damaged during the installation of the propeller governor, which subsequently failed during takeoff and allowed the engine to overspeed and overheat to the point of losing power.
Probable cause
Maintenance personnel's improper installation of the propeller governor, which resulted in damage to the governor drive gear and its subsequent failure and a subsequent loss of engine power.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN15LA298
- Event ID
- 20150707X10125
- Case number
- CEN15LA298
- 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. 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: 25c0e2d55ea41b3c911352a6fddbc0458fa1fa6105887d1f20e697724ad18a19; retrieved 2026-09-16T02:29:54.495Z.