CEN24LA011 · Cirrus SR22 T
Cirrus SR22 T · Accident: powerplant system/component malfunction/failure en route
From Eppley Airfield (OMA) to CPS · St Louis, MO
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN24LA011
- 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 T
- 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
- N6JA
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Eppley Airfield (OMA), Omaha, NETo CPS · St Louis, MO
- Aircraft age
- About 10 years (built 2013)
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft power plant
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that the engine began to run rough during the cross-country flight, and the pilot diverted to a nearby non-tower-controlled airport, where he flew the RNAV (GPS) approach to runway 5, the airport’s longest runway. During the descent and approach, the air traffic controller informed the pilot that runway 5 was closed; however, the pilot proceeded to land, and the airplane impacted a barricade and ground equipment, which resulted in substantial damage to the left wing. Examination of the engine found excessive combustion products on the No. 4 cylinder exhaust valve. The deposits wore the valve guide, which resulted in the improper seat of the valve, abnormal valve operation, and fatigue failure of the valve face. The excessive combustion product deposits were most likely due to a rich fuel/air mixture, which prevented the cylinder from reaching the temperature required to ensure that lead combustion products were expelled from the cylinder with the exhaust gas. Review of the airplane’s maintenance records revealed that the engine was 15 days overdue for an annual inspection. Had the required inspection had been performed on time, the exhaust valve issues likely would have been discovered before the accident occurred.
Probable cause
The fatigue failure of the exhaust valve due to excessive combustion deposits, which resulted in a partial loss of engine power. Contributing to the accident was the pilot’s failure to ensure that the required scheduled maintenance was completed.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN24LA011
- Event ID
- 20231016193240
- Case number
- CEN24LA011
- 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: 765c6d4b895475bd77a3de4277de44088a2a98728750b8c10c13492804672b13; retrieved 2026-09-16T18:13:04.746Z.