ERA16LA110 · Cirrus Design Corp SR22
Cirrus Design Corp SR22 · Accident: loss of engine power (partial) en route
From Raleigh Executive Jetport (TTA) to Leesburg International Airport (LEE)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA16LA110
- 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
- 0
- 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
- N256CD
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Raleigh Executive Jetport (TTA), Sanford, NCTo Leesburg International Airport (LEE), Leesburg, FL
- Aircraft age
- About 14 years (built 2002)
- 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 · descent
- 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 (partial)
- 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
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The private pilot stated that, while in cruise flight at 7,000 ft mean sea level (msl), he began a descent to a lower altitude to prepare for arrival at the destination airport. Just after he began the descent, he retarded the throttle slightly, and the engine power dropped dramatically. The propeller continued to rotate, and the pilot attempted to divert to the nearest airport. During the glide, the pilot adjusted the mixture, switched magnetos, and moved the throttle to full and then back to idle again with no effect. When he determined that the airplane would be unable to reach the diversion airport, he deployed the airframe parachute system about 1,000 ft msl. The airplane came to rest upright in the backyard of a residence.
Examination of the airplane revealed that both wing fuel tanks were about half full of fuel. After recovery, examination of the engine revealed no evidence of any preimpact mechanical malfunctions that would have precluded operation, and a successful engine test run was conducted. Additionally, review of engine monitor data did not reveal any anomalies before or after the partial loss of engine power.
Probable cause
A partial loss of engine power for reasons that could not be determined because engine examination, an engine test run, and review of engine monitor data did not reveal any evidence of preimpact anomalies that would have precluded normal operation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA16LA110
- Event ID
- 20160223X43139
- Case number
- ERA16LA110
- 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: 1616cf9af59e39580a5d498890730cd15a964583f15d64a9d215dc599192ade0; retrieved 2026-09-16T03:10:28.232Z.