ERA18LA253 · Cirrus SR22 Undesignat
Cirrus SR22 Undesignat · Accident: loss of control on ground during takeoff
From Montauk Airport (MTP) to Town of East Hampton Airport (HTO)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA18LA253
- 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 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
- N161DL
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Montauk Airport (MTP), Montauk, NYTo Town of East Hampton Airport (HTO), East Hampton, NY
- Aircraft age
- About 4 years (built 2014)
- 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
- Loss of control on ground
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Tree(s)
- 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 oper/perf/capability
- Aircraft › Aircraft structures
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The private pilot was taking off for a personal, cross-country flight. He reported that, at rotation, the pilot's seat "abruptly slid backwards to the outermost distance from the controls." As a result, the pilot could no longer reach the pedals to maintain directional control, and his aileron input could not counteract the airplane's left-turning tendency. The airplane subsequently departed the left side of the runway, struck trees and shrubs, and then came to rest upright. The wings, fuselage, and empennage sustained substantial damage.
According to the pilot, except for the pilot seat, the airplane performed as designed with no other anomalies noted. Examination of the pilot's seat revealed no anomalies with the installation, dimensions, or operation. The seat moved freely fore and aft with no binding or anomalous operation noted. During postaccident functional testing of the seat, when twisting forces to the right were applied to the seat and while being slid forward, the seat position locking pin could be partially engaged, but not all the pins would seat, and the control handle would not go fully down nor could it be forced into position. Straightening or forward movement of the seat resulted in full pin engagement with the control handle in the fully down position. Given this information, it is likely that the pilot applied a twisting force when moving the seat and did not fully engage the seat position locking pins before initiating the takeoff, which resulted in the seat subsequently sliding back as the airplane accelerated during takeoff and the pilot's subsequent loss of directional control.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to properly secure his seat before initiating the takeoff, which resulted in the seat sliding back as the airplane accelerated during takeoff, his inability to reach the pedals, and the subsequent loss of directional control and impact with trees and shrubs.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA18LA253
- Event ID
- 20180916X70852
- Case number
- ERA18LA253
- 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. 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: f1761ea05032310982816a7295f74f0076154d103cbf4f2726ac9dbdd1f360e5; retrieved 2026-09-16T08:15:08.712Z.