LAX01FA145 · Cirrus Design Corp. SR20
Cirrus Design Corp. SR20 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Tucson International Airport (TUS) to Albuquerque International Sunport (ABQ)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX01FA145
- 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
- API-reported fatalities
- 3 · all aircraft and ground
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Cirrus Design Corp. SR20
- Aircraft type
- Cirrus SR20
- 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
- N116CD
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Tucson International Airport (TUS), Tucson, AZTo Albuquerque International Sunport (ABQ), Albuquerque, NM
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- 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
- En route · cruise
- First occurrenceThe 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
- In flight encounter with weather
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Visual flight rules (VFR) flight into instrument meteorological conditions (IMC)
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, attempted
- Pilot in command › Weather evaluation, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The composite aircraft impacted the side of a mountain approximately 20 minutes prior to sunset after the noninstrument rated private pilot departed on a cross-country flight. The pilot obtained printed weather information via a DUATs system approximately 9 hours prior to the flight's departure. AIRMETS for mountain obscurement, moderate turbulence and moderate rime/mixed icing conditions were in effect, and included the area of the accident site. Previous weather observations from the departure airport reported snow showers located over the mountains in the vicinity of the flight's route. A witness located near the accident site, reported he could not see the base of the mountain throughout the day due to sleet, snow, rain, and wind. Nearby airport weather observations indicated VFR weather conditions; however, forecasts for the flight route indicated there was still a chance of mountain obscurement. No evidence was found that the pilot obtained updated weather information for the route of flight prior to taking off. No anomalies were noted that would have prevented normal aircraft operation.
Probable cause
the pilot's inadequate weather evaluation and attempted VFR flight into IMC, which resulted in an in-flight collision with mountainous terrain. Factors in the accident included the adverse weather conditions and the dusk lighting conditions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX01FA145
- Event ID
- 20010423X00798
- Case number
- LAX01FA145
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
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: local date, investigation status, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2001-04-11.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 91b4709f671cd530642fad3437009262c1c78ce53092ea9f29e1604fd654cea8; retrieved 2026-09-20T20:35:54.738Z.