CEN18LA195 · Cirrus Design Corp SR20
Cirrus Design Corp SR20 · Accident: flight control system malfunction/failure during takeoff
From Houston Executive Airport (TME) to TKJ · McKinney, TX
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's departure or destination. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN18LA195
- 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
- N67Y
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route Narrative disagrees
- From Houston Executive Airport (TME), Katy, TXTo TKJ · McKinney, TX
- Aircraft age
- About 15 years (built 2003)
- 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
- Takeoff
- 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
- Flight control system 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 systems
- Aircraft › Fluids/miscellaneous hardware
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that immediately after takeoff, the airplane began to roll to the left. He attempted to counteract the roll with right aileron input but could not control the rolling motion; the airplane continued to roll to the left. The pilot continued to use right aileron and trim, lowered the nose, and executed a forced landing in a field adjacent to the departure airport.
Examination of the wreckage showed that the left aileron actuation arm and attachment bolt were missing; there was no associated impact damage. Impact marks were present on the inboard hinge consistent with the aileron striking it. No distress or markings were found in the hole for the attachment bolt. The bolt or remnants of safety wire were not found.
The pilot reported that he had flown the airplane the day before the accident and noted no problems with the flight controls. The most recent annual inspection and maintenance documents did not show any work performed on the ailerons. It could not be determined when the bolt came loose from the attachment. The absence of the bolt would severely affect aileron flight control as reported by the pilot, allowing the aileron to rotate freely around the hinge point with no connection to the flight controls. After the accident, the Federal Aviation Administration issued an aviation maintenance alert advising owners and operators of SR20 and SR22 airplanes to visually inspect the bolt for the aileron actuation arm for the presence of a safety wire.
Probable cause
The loss of airplane control on takeoff due to the absence of the attachment bolt for the left aileron actuation arm.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN18LA195
- Event ID
- 20180528X34326
- Case number
- CEN18LA195
- 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, cause areas. 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: 3dd392e365910095a19894fa1ea15987fb3f6039c96385f54445e751f679a5dd; retrieved 2026-09-16T07:16:31.456Z.