CEN16LA151 · Cirrus Design Corp SR20
Cirrus Design Corp SR20 · Accident: powerplant system/component malfunction/failure en route
From Eunice Airport (4R7) to Lago Vista Texas Rusty Allen Airport (RYW)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN16LA151
- 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 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
- N8PY
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Eunice Airport (4R7), Eunice, LATo Lago Vista Texas Rusty Allen Airport (RYW), Lago Vista, TX
- Aircraft age
- About 10 years (built 2006)
- 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 · cruise
- 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
- Powerplant system/component malfunction/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
- Aircraft › Aircraft power plant
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While in cruise flight, the private pilot experienced a vibration and noise that seemed to be originating from the engine. He reported that the engine rpm became erratic, and the airplane became harder to control due to the unusual vibration. As the pilot proceeded to the closest airport for a precautionary landing, the engine "seemed to be starting and stopping" or sputtering. The pilot reported that, before touching down on the 3,252-foot-long runway, the engine experienced a total loss of power. He flared the airplane above the runway and touched down at a higher-than-normal speed. The airplane bounced and settled onto the runway near its midpoint. Despite full braking action, the pilot was unable to stop the airplane, and it overran the runway before colliding with a tree and fence. An examination of the engine found that the exhaust pipe had fractured from the No. 5 cylinder; however, the reason for the separation could not be determined. No additional preimpact anomalies were detected with the engine that would have precluded normal operation.
The airplane's multifunction display recorded the airplane's flight and engine parameters. Data showed a large drop in exhaust gas temperature of the No. 5 cylinder consistent with a failure of the exhaust pipe. The data revealed that, during the landing, the engine was operating until just before the airplane came to rest when the manifold pressure increased to ambient pressure.
Probable cause
The failure of the No. 5 cylinder's exhaust pipe for undetermined reasons, which resulted in a partial loss of engine power. Contributing to the accident was the pilot’s fast and long landing, which led to a runway overrun.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN16LA151
- Event ID
- 20160413X21652
- Case number
- CEN16LA151
- 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: 39a7d5105c0360c04d181808dd67fe830c4ccd1a7eb80f2c5c2809d5849eebf2; retrieved 2026-09-16T03:17:39.948Z.