CEN20LA082 · Cessna 560 ENCORE
SC Cole Aviation Cessna 560 ENCORE · Accident: part(s) separation from aircraft en route
From Dallas Love Field (DAL) to Midland International Air and Space Port (MAF)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN20LA082
- 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
Cessna 560 ENCORE
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 560
- 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
- N654CE
- Operator
- SC Cole Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Dallas Love Field (DAL), Dallas, TXTo Midland International Air and Space Port (MAF), Midland, TX
- Aircraft age
- About 16 years (built 2004)
- 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
- 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
- Part(s) separation from aircraft
- 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
- Aircraft › Fluids/miscellaneous hardware
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The air transport pilot of the twin-engine jet heard a "loud crashing noise" followed by a "turbulent air sound." The pilot reported everything checked out normal except the "turbulent air sound," which was exacerbated with rudder movement. The flight diverted and continued to a normal landing. A postflight inspection revealed the upper and lower cowlings for the No. 2 (right) engine were missing. A portion of the separated cowlings was found wrapped around the inboard section of the right horizontal stabilizer. Another portion of the separated cowlings impacted the area between the leading edge of the vertical stabilizer and the top of the fuselage, resulting in substantial damage. The remaining pieces of the separated cowlings have not been recovered.
On-scene examination revealed that receptacle 29, at the forward inboard side of the lower cowl door, was missing its stud, snap ring, and grommet and that receptacles 26 and 28 were missing their grommets and snap rings but had retained their studs. All other receptacles had retained their attachment hardware. Receptacle 29 was visually examined for indications of damage or wear and the locking features on the backside of the cup were compared against an exemplar cup. There were no apparent indications of damage or wear that could have contributed to the stud cross-pin pulling out or rotating out of the locked position. The fracture surfaces on the two cowl pieces were examined for indications of fatigue, but none were found.
The most likely cause of the cowl door departure is that either the stud at receptacle 29 was left unlocked when the cowl door was attached, or an oversized stud was used at receptacle 29 that was able to rotate from the locked to unlocked position. Without the stud to examine and additional on-wing testing, it cannot be determined whether the stud at that location was a longer grip-length stud or if spontaneous unlocking of a longer grip-length stud is an actual possibility.
The reason for the separation of the cowlings could not be determined because the stud in question was not recovered.
Probable cause
The in-flight separation of the upper and lower right engine cowlings for reasons that could not be determined based on available evidence.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN20LA082
- Event ID
- 20200213X95851
- Case number
- CEN20LA082
- 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: 2c9fe5167c197b6248e8d7a31ad5474d4d8d5a90e276f1ecb40c689941e6101c; retrieved 2026-09-16T11:07:23.476Z.