November 27, 2011 MSB Addresses TCM Turbo Engine Problems

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By Russ Niles, Editor-in-Chief

Owners of certain new and rebuilt turbocharger-equipped Continental 520 and 550 series engines should be aware of a mandatory service bulletin (PDF) issued last week that will ground some airplanes immediately. There have been five instances where the starter adapter on engines produced since the beginning of 2011 have failed due to misalignment of parts within the adapter. Failure of the part causes the engine to ship all its oil overboard followed by catastrophic engine failure.

The FAA is expected to issue an airworthiness directive this week. It's expected the AD will affect about 120 airplanes, many of them new Cirrus SR22T and SR22 TURBO models. As the failures happen early in the engine's service, affected aircraft with less than 75 hours on the engine are grounded until the MSB is complied with. Those with 75-100 hours have 10 hours to comply and those with more than 100 hours are not affected.