CEN22LA144 · Cirrus Design Corp SR22T
Cirrus Design Corp SR22T · Accident: loss of engine power (partial) on approach
From Hector International Airport (FAR) to Minot International Airport (MOT)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN22LA144
- 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
- Event fatalities
- Unknown
- 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 SR22T
- 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
- N164CP
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Hector International Airport (FAR), Fargo, NDTo Minot International Airport (MOT), Minot, ND
- Aircraft age
- About 8 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
- Approach
- 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 engine power (partial)
- 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
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During a cross-country flight, about 50-miles from the destination airport, the engine began to run rough. The pilot continued toward the airport and tried to resolve the engine issue. The No. 6 cylinder dropped offline, followed by the Nos. 2 and 4 cylinders. The engine was still running, but the pilot could not maintain enough altitude to make it to the airport. The pilot executed a forced landing in a snow-covered field. The airplane nosed over during the landing, which resulted in substantial damage to the engine firewall. Downloaded engine monitoring data showed the No.6 cylinder stopped operating, followed by the Nos. 2 and 4 cylinders, consistent with the pilot’s statement. Oil was found on the belly of the airplane during initial examination. The data showed that the cruise power setting during the accident flight was 0.1 inches of mercury above the maximum cruise power setting listed in the flight manual. The recorded fuel flow was also above that expected for the maximum cruise power setting at the altitude flown. During detailed teardown examinations of the engine, all six piston heads were found with various degrees of pitting damage. The most significant damage was found on the No. 2, 4, and 6 pistons. The damage found was consistent with detonation. The connecting rods exhibited thermal damage and the oil sump and oil filter contained aluminum particles. The fuel distribution spider valve and the fuel injectors were found normal and not obstructed. The metal fragments from the piston heads most likely obstructed the oil journals in the crankshaft and prevented oil from reaching the connecting rods and bearings. Thermal damage found within the rods and bearings of the engine likely resulted from the oil starvation. Review of the engine logbooks did not reveal any uncorrected mechanical defects. The loss of engine power was likely due to detonation that damaged the piston heads and resulted in their subsequent failure.
Probable cause
The failure of the Nos.2, 4, and 6 cylinders due to detonation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN22LA144
- Event ID
- 20220316104791
- Case number
- CEN22LA144
- 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: 1e964ca9e7011dd4464c6c4aff11527049c2725ffa7483e19deab10250ce36c8; retrieved 2026-09-16T15:02:48.243Z.