CEN24LA079 · Cirrus Design Corp SR22T
Cirrus Design Corp SR22T · Accident: loss of engine power (total) on approach
From Tullahoma Regional Airport William Northern Field (THA) to Davenport Municipal Airport (DVN)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN24LA079
- 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
- N773GB
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Tullahoma Regional Airport William Northern Field (THA), Tullahoma, TNTo Davenport Municipal Airport (DVN), Davenport, IA
- Aircraft age
- About 9 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 (total)
- 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 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, as he descended toward the airport to land, smoke came from the engine cowling and oil splattered over the windscreen. The engine lost all power and the pilot executed a forced landing to a corn field. During the forced landing the airplane’s landing gear collapsed and both wings sustained substantial damage. Postaccident examination of the engine revealed that the No. 5 cylinder fractured, which resulted in the engine’s lubricating oil being pumped outside of the cylinder. Examination of the fracture surface of the accident cylinder showed fracture features consistent with high-cycle fatigue. The cylinder was subject to FAA Airworthiness Directive (AD) 2020-16-11, which required compliance with the manufacturer’s Mandatory Service Bulletin (MSB)18-08. The MSB required blending of the cylinder casting in the area where the fracture originated. The cylinder had evidence of work consistent with compliance with the MSB. The blending on the cylinder from the accident aircraft spanned the entire outboard edge but did not extend the full 0.25 inches indicated in the MSB. The loss of engine power was likely due to the fatigue fracture of the exhaust rocker arm support area of the No. 5 cylinder head, which allowed the engine’s lubricating oil to be pumped outside the cylinder. The loss of lubrication resulted in catastrophic failure of other engine components.
Probable cause
The fatigue failure of the No. 5 cylinder head, which resulted in a total loss of engine power. Contributing to the accident was the maintenance which did not fully blend to the depth necessary to preclude the failure.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN24LA079
- Event ID
- 20240103193595
- Case number
- CEN24LA079
- 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: c1776f850a10a5791ace7beb691cb61b3894d906d98246dab5efaf7925771c91; retrieved 2026-09-16T18:24:24.540Z.