LAX07FA021 · Cirrus SR22
Cirrus SR22 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Lake Tahoe Airport (TVL) to Grand Canyon National Park Airport (GCN)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX07FA021
- 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
- 4 · 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
- N121LD
- Operator
- Luis A. Castro · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Lake Tahoe Airport (TVL), S Lake Tahoe, CATo Grand Canyon National Park Airport (GCN), Grand Canyon NP, AZ
- 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
- Stall/spin
- 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 › Flight into adverse weather, continued
- 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 pilot contacted a flight service station (FSS) specialist to file an instrument flight plan. He stated that he had onboard weather and did not need a weather briefing; however, the FSS specialist did not provide information about adverse weather conditions along the route of flight, as required by FAA directives. The pilot then departed on the cross-country flight. While en route to his destination, the pilot told the air traffic controller that he needed to deviate around weather. The air traffic controller was aware of thunderstorms along the pilot's route of flight, as well as an icing report north of his position. The air traffic controller did not advise the pilot of the known weather information, as required by FAA directives. The pilot continued and then stated that they had an emergency due to icing conditions. Meteorological conditions at the time of the accident showed that the pilot encountered rime/mixed icing of at least moderate intensity, in convection. Thunderstorms were in the area and turbulence was also possible. The airplane then stalled and entered a spin. There was no evidence that the pilot attempted to activate the Cirrus Airframe Parachute System (CAPS), although activation of the system is the only approved recovery of the airplane after its entry into a spin. Weather information transmitted to the airplane's onboard weather system contained weather forecasts of icing, turbulence, and thunderstorms. Whether or not the pilot reviewed this information could not be determined. Testing showed that a fluid line of the anti-icing system could disconnect at higher pressure; however, under normal system pressure the line stayed secured. No other mechanical anomalies were identified during the examinations.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate weather evaluation and continued flight into forecasted icing conditions. Contributing to the severity of the accident was the pilot's failure to follow proper operating procedures and deploy the CAPS when the airplane entered a spin. The flight service specialist's failure to follow published procedures to provide adverse weather or forecast potential hazardous conditions along the intended route of flight, as well as the air traffic controller's failure to provide the pilot with radar-displayed weather information were factors.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX07FA021
- Event ID
- 20061031X01585
- Case number
- LAX07FA021
- 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: 6e0327c91ba8bafba22f087f9c1fe8462bac52742c4027e655af1de6bc89097b; retrieved 2026-09-20T17:00:55.741Z.