WPR26LA159 · Cirrus Design Corp SR22T
Cirrus Design Corp SR22T · Accident: loss of control in flight during takeoff
From an unrecorded airport to Camarillo International Airport (CMA)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR26LA159
- 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
- N285AH
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Camarillo International Airport (CMA), Camarillo, CA
- Aircraft age
- About 7 years (built 2019)
- 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
- Takeoff
- 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 control in flight
- 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 oper/perf/capability
- Aircraft › Aircraft systems
- 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 after conducting a preflight inspection he entered the airplane and adjusted the seat in accordance with the manufacturer's instructions. The pilot taxied for departure and performed an engine run-up. After receiving the takeoff clearance from the tower controller, he began the takeoff roll. However, as the pilot applied nose up control input, the seat slid back to the full aft position. The airplane pitched up, yawed to the left, and subsequently impacted terrain. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the right wing. The preflight inspection and airplane run-up revealed no anomalies. Post accident examination of the left seat, seat rails, and seat locking pins revealed no mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation. The seat was able to slide from stop to stop without the locking pins engaged. When the seat locking pins were engaged in the seat rails, the seat locked in place. The seat movement described by the pilot during the accident sequence was unable to be duplicated. The Pilot’s Operating Handbook states in part, “Crew seats must be locked in position, and control handles fully down before flight.” A non-mandatory service bulletin was issued in August, 2024 by the airframe manufacturer which recommended the installation of a secondary seat latch and stop, which limits how far aft the crew seat can move if the seat pins are not fully engaged. A review of the airplane maintenance records revealed that this service bulletin had not been complied with on the accident airplane. Based on the available evidence, it is unknown if the pilot properly secured the seat or if the seat latching mechanism malfunctioned.
Probable cause
The pilot’s loss of control during takeoff, due to the seat sliding aft.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR26LA159
- Event ID
- 20260416202836
- Case number
- WPR26LA159
- 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: 0c00a864ea4eb1b651a3edd131376ea5c02c19133bc28d49e354cf58761a2fba; retrieved 2026-09-16T21:16:10.764Z.