Cirrus SR22T · NTSB accident record

The Headset DistractionWPR18LA256

Date
Friday, September 7, 2018
Time
~3:00 PM CDT
Weather
VMC · 8 SM visibility · south wind gusting to 12 kt · 86°F
Location
Kennett Memorial Airport (KTKX), Kennett, Missouri
Age
62
Hours in type (Cirrus SR22T)
1,180 hrs
Hours, last 90 days
19 hrs
Cockpit moment

Two Hundred Feet Up

You're departing Kennett in a Cirrus SR22T, with your wife in the right seat.

During the takeoff roll, you notice the active noise reduction on your Lightspeed headset isn't working. The inline control module is wedged between your seat and the center console.

You rotate about 1,100 feet down the runway and lift off approximately 1,900 feet into the 3,012-foot runway, planning to free the module once airborne.

At roughly 200 feet, you engage the autopilot and lean down to work it loose.

It stays stuck.

Seconds later, the engine note changes and power drops sharply. The airplane stops climbing as it should.

You sit upright. The power and mixture levers are full forward. As the sink-rate warning begins, you scan the panel and try to determine what is happening.

While you troubleshoot the power loss, you ask your wife for the altitude.

She looks at the panel.

"Six hundred and forty feet."

By the numbers
511
GA accidents where distraction was a factor
34
a year
89%
were survivable
81
lives lost in them
81%
of Cirrus parachute pulls survived
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The decision

The engine loses power at 640 feet and you don't know why.