CEN20LA336 · Cirrus SR22 Undesignat
Cirrus SR22 Undesignat · Accident: fire/smoke (non-impact) during initial climb
From Grand Glaize Osage Beach Airport (K15) to Fairfield Municipal Airport (FFL)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN20LA336
- 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
- 2 · 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
- N949CG
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Grand Glaize Osage Beach Airport (K15), Osage Beach, MOTo Fairfield Municipal Airport (FFL), Fairfield, IA
- Aircraft age
- About 13 years (built 2007)
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Fire/smoke (non-impact)
- 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
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
A witness reported that the accident pilot flooded the engine while attempting to start it, as fuel was seen draining from the engine compartment before engine start and smoke was seen coming from the engine compartment after engine start. No smoke was observed when the airplane taxied to the runway. Witnesses and surveillance video confirmed that the airplane was trailing smoke after takeoff, and the pilot transmitted via radio that he was returning to the airport. Data retrieved from an onboard GPS receiver indicated that the airplane reached a peak altitude of about 200 ft above ground level after takeoff, then rolled left from about 30° to about 50° before it rolled rapidly to the right, became inverted, and descended into terrain.
The wreckage was mostly consumed by fire. Examination revealed no anomalies with the engine or airframe; however, the scope of the examination was limited due to fire damage. Although no source of fire in-flight could be confirmed, the visual observations of smoke in flight and the pilot’s radio call that he was returning to the airport are consistent with an in flight fire. The investigation could not determine whether fire affected the controllability of the airplane or whether the pilot failed to maintain airplane control while turning back to the airport. No medical evidence was found to indicate the pilot inhaled smoke prior to impact.
Probable cause
An in-flight fire and subsequent loss of airplane control shortly after takeoff. The source of the in-flight fire or the reason for the loss of airplane control could not be determined based on the available information.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN20LA336
- Event ID
- 20200816X60714
- Case number
- CEN20LA336
- 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. 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: 904e2f8ef38598d08f2aa529db70fca4e815c0056aced7fc62737dcbdca4db3a; retrieved 2026-09-15T07:18:20.533Z.