History of Flight
On August 19, 2018, about 2019 central daylight time, a Cirrus SR22 T airplane, N1133T, impacted obstructions after exiting runway 14 during landing at Granbury Regional Airport (GDJ) near Granbury, Texas. The private pilot sustained minor injuries, and the airplane sustained substantial wing and fuselage damage. The airplane was registered to and operated by the pilot as a Title 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 91 personal flight. Dusk visual meteorological conditions prevailed, and the flight was not operated on a flight plan. The local flight originated from GDJ about 1949.
The purpose of the flight was to practice an instrument flight rules approach. The pilot checked flight controls for full movement, then departed from runway 14 to the north. He set the autopilot to intercept the area navigation approach to runway 14 at its initial approach fix. The autopilot intercepted the approach normally, and the airplane made a procedure turn to intercept the approach's glidepath. The glidepath was flown down to minimums, and a go-around was established using the go-around button, which suspended the landing sequence on the computer. During the climb to 2,700 ft, a waypoint was manually set to reestablish computer sequencing. Upon arrival at the waypoint, the autopilot was disengaged using the panel autopilot button. The pilot then proceeded into the downwind leg for runway 14. All flight controls appeared to perform normally. The right turns to base and final were made normally, with minimal rudder inputs on final. As the pilot started to flare, he applied more rudder but could not depress the left rudder pedal fully. The airplane touched down at about 80 kts on the main landing gear while the pilot was holding all left rudder possible. The airplane veered right, exited the runway, and impacted a ditch, fence, and tree.
Pilot Information
The pilot held a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) private pilot certificate with airplane single-engine land, glider, and instrument ratings and a third-class medical certificate dated May 3, 2018, with a limitation for corrective lenses. He reported 580 hours of total flight time, including 20 hours in the same make and model as the accident airplane. He completed a Cirrus Airframe/Powerplant Differences Course on May 26, 2018, which included high performance and flight review endorsements.
Aircraft Information
N1133T, a 2015 Cirrus SR22 T, serial number 1030, was a four-place, single-engine, low-wing airplane powered by a six-cylinder, 315-horsepower Teledyne Continental Motors TSIO-550-K engine (serial number 1011841). The airplane had a demonstrated crosswind of 21 kts. It was equipped with a Garmin GFC 700 digital Automatic Flight Control System (AFCS) autopilot and an optional yaw damper. The approved airplane flight manual supplement for the GFC 700 AFCS stated, "Yaw Damper must be turned off for takeoff and landing" and included an autopilot override test before taxiing.
The pilot reported that the last annual inspection was completed in May 2018. He noted that punch list items and an airframe logbook entry referring to replacement of the rudder bellcrank rod bearing may have affected the yaw. A representative from the maintenance facility stated that during the annual, the yaw servo bridle cable tension was found low and adjusted, and the autopilot servo clutch torque check was within limits. The aft rudder control rod end was inspected with no defects noted.
Additional Information
After the accident, Cirrus supplied a factory flight instructor who provided 6.3 hours of dual instruction to the pilot over two consecutive days in a similarly equipped Cirrus. The instructor noted that the pilot was not using checklists properly and did not include overriding the yaw damper in his ground check. During approaches, the pilot was disengaging the autopilot using the panel autopilot (AP) button instead of the autopilot disengage button, which allowed the yaw damper to remain engaged. The instructor taught the pilot to incorporate the yaw damper override test into the before-takeoff checklist. The instructor confirmed that the pilot could override the yaw damper and achieve full deflection, but the pilot remarked that his airplane's yaw damper was harder to override during the accident. The instructor stated that the yaw damper override forces were consistent with other yaw damper-equipped Cirrus aircraft.
Data from the airplane's Recoverable Data Module (RDM) showed the yaw damper was not engaged about 0.25 miles before the runway threshold.
FAA certification paperwork indicated that the SR22 type airplane did not exceed the maximum prescribed control forces for temporary application of the rudder pedal while the yaw damper was engaged.