CEN18LA189 · M-Squared Aircraft SPRINT 1000
M-Squared Aircraft SPRINT 1000 · Accident: loss of engine power (total) en route
From Gurdon Lowe Field (5M8) to Gurdon Lowe Field (5M8)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN18LA189
- 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
M-Squared Aircraft SPRINT 1000
- Aircraft type
- M Squared SPRINT 1000
- 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
- N138ZX
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Gurdon Lowe Field (5M8), Gurdon, ARTo Gurdon Lowe Field (5M8), Gurdon, AR
- Aircraft age
- About 12 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
- 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 power plant
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 reported that he and a passenger had just departed on a local, personal flight when the engine “suddenly stopped.” Shortly thereafter, the engine seized, and the airplane began to descend rapidly. The pilot deployed the airplane's ballistic parachute about 200 ft above ground level, and the airplane then landed hard in a residential area, which resulted in substantial damage to the wings and fuselage. The pilot recalled that, during the takeoff and climb, the instruments showed no unusual indications and that the engine made no unusual sounds. Examination of the engine revealed that the top of the MAG piston ring had failed, which resulted in damage to the MAG piston and cylinder walls. Both rubber PTO and MAG carburetor intake sockets were worn and cracked. Complete engine records were not available, and no record was found indicating that the engine had been overhauled during its 23 years of operation. The engine manufacturer recommended that the engine should be overhauled every 300 hours or 5 years, whichever occurred first, and that the rubber carburetor intake sockets should be replaced every 5 years or as signatures of deterioration were detected. Cracked rubber carburetor intake sockets can result in a lean mixture and lead to a piston seizure. The inadequate maintenance of the engine likely led to the failure of the MAG piston ring and the subsequent loss of all engine power due to a piston seizure.
Probable cause
Inadequate engine maintenance, which resulted in the failure of the MAG piston ring and the subsequent total loss of engine power due to a piston seizure.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN18LA189
- Event ID
- 20180523X05505
- Case number
- CEN18LA189
- 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: local date, investigation status, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2018-05-22.
- API snapshot SHA-256: f78c77eb5af4f06c7389ac086ef8aa3df5c120d62a247c90e066559e74ea89dc; retrieved 2026-09-16T07:14:00.210Z.