Cirrus SR22 accident near Montauk, New York, September 16, 2018

The NTSB's narrative final · quoted from the NTSB record

The private pilot was taking off for a personal, cross-country flight. He reported that, at rotation, the pilot's seat "abruptly slid backwards to the outermost distance from the controls." As a result, the pilot could no longer reach the pedals to maintain directional control, and his aileron input could not counteract the airplane's left-turning tendency. The airplane subsequently departed the left side of the runway, struck trees and shrubs, and then came to rest upright. The wings, fuselage, and empennage sustained substantial damage.   According to the pilot, except for the pilot seat, the airplane performed as designed with no other anomalies noted. Examination of the pilot's seat revealed no anomalies with the installation, dimensions, or operation. The seat moved freely fore and aft with no binding or anomalous operation noted. During postaccident functional testing of the seat, when twisting forces to the right were applied to the seat and while being slid forward, the seat position locking pin could be partially engaged, but not all the pins would seat, and the control handle would not go fully down nor could it be forced into position. Straightening or forward movement of the seat resulted in full pin engagement with the control handle in the fully down position. Given this information, it is likely that the pilot applied a twisting force when moving the seat and did not fully engage the seat position locking pins before initiating the takeoff, which resulted in the seat subsequently sliding back as the airplane accelerated during takeoff and the pilot's subsequent loss of directional control.

The complete narrative as the NTSB published it. The NTSB's docket holds the report as a PDF and any photographs, statements and other documents from the investigation.