WPR18LA174 · Cirrus Design Corp SR22 UNDESIGNAT
Elite Flight Training and Rental Cirrus Design Corp SR22 UNDESIGNAT · Accident: powerplant system/component malfunction/failure en route
From Scottsdale Airport (SDL) to Lake Havasu City Airport (HII)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR18LA174
- 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 UNDESIGNAT
- 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
- N764CT
- Operator
- Elite Flight Training and Rental
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Scottsdale Airport (SDL), Scottsdale, AZTo Lake Havasu City Airport (HII), Lake Havasu City, AZ
- Aircraft age
- About 10 years (built 2008)
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft power plant
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, not marked as estimated; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During a cross-country flight, the pilot observed a significant increase in the engine oil pressure followed by a sudden drop. He prepared for an emergency landing during which the engine speed increased and the engine lost power. The cabin then filled with smoke and oil covered the windshield. The pilot was able to activate the airplane’s parachute and the airplane landed about 5 seconds later in a ravine. The airplane was destroyed by a postcrash fire. A postaccident examination of the engine revealed evidence of a pre-ignition/detonation event that partially eroded the Nos. 2 and 5 pistons. The eroded pistons permitted the pressurization of the crankcase, which resulted in oil starvation of the engine. Due to the severe fire damage, the cause of the preignition/detonation could not be determined.
Probable cause
A total loss of engine power due to pre-ignition/detonation for reasons that could not be determined based on available information.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR18LA174
- Event ID
- 20180619X15101
- Case number
- WPR18LA174
- 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, coordinates, 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: 099f0d3c90c5ce70e88584f81c77c67901c2079f22cd97943e197768534bbf0e; retrieved 2026-09-16T07:34:20.209Z.