ATL06LA035 · Cirrus SR22
Cirrus SR22 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport (BHM) to Orlando Executive Airport (ORL)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL06LA035
- 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
- 0 · 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Cirrus SR22
- Aircraft type
- Cirrus SR22
- 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
- N87HK
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport (BHM), Birmingham, ALTo Orlando Executive Airport (ORL), Orlando, FL
- 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 · climb to 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
- Stall/spin; Tree(s)
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Flight into known adverse weather, attempted
- Pilot in command › Planning/decision, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Preflight briefing service, not used
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot obtained a full Direct User Access Terminal (DUATS) the night before the accident. The briefing was not valid for the time of the accident. The National Weather Service (NWS) issued AIRMET Zulu update 3 for icing and freezing level data valid from 1445 CST until 2100 CST. The advisory warned of occasional moderate to mixed icing-in-clouds and in precipitation between 3,000 to 8,000 feet. The departure airport and the accident site were within the boundaries of the advisory. The pilot requested an abbreviated DUATS weather briefing at 1244 EST for his route of flight between Birmingham, Alabama, and Orlando, Florida. The in-flight advisories were to expire at 1500 CST. The briefing provided several adverse weather phenomena impacting the route of flight from icing, turbulence, and thunderstorms. The pilot stated he was not aware of AIRMET ZULU UPT 3, that was issued by the NWS before he departed Birmingham. The airplane was equipped with an XM Satellite radio. The AIRMET was transmitted by the NWS and over the XM radio installed in the airplane. The airplane is not certified for flights into icing conditions. The pilot stated the flight departed from runway 24 and he contacted the air traffic controller on the radio. The airplane was identified by radar and the pilot was instructed to climb to 7,000 feet direct to Hande intersection. The airplane entered the clouds at 5,000 feet on autopilot climbing at 120 knots. Upon reaching 7,000 feet the airplane encountered icing conditions. The pilot informed the controller that he would like to climb to 9,000 feet which was approved. As the airplane reached the cloud tops in visual flight conditions at 8,000 feet the airplane began to buffet. The pilot looked at his airspeed indicator and it indicated 80 knots. The airplane stalled, entered a spin back into instrument flight conditions. The pilot deployed the ballistic parachute system and informed the air traffic controller of his actions. The airplane descended under the parachute canopy into the trees..
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate preflight planning, failure to obtain a current weather briefing, and his decision to operate the airplane into a known area of icing outside the airplanes certification standards resulting in the aircraft accumulating ice, a loss of airspeed, an inadvertent stall/spin and subsequent collision with trees.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL06LA035
- Event ID
- 20060118X00086
- Case number
- ATL06LA035
- 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: investigation status, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 8294c00faed9c642ce8a37524397d94e91f5065e80228df6001b2a22ade89cc9; retrieved 2026-09-22T05:09:40.305Z.