SEA08FA108 · Cirrus Design Corp. SR22
Cirrus Design Corp. SR22 · Accident: controlled flight into terrain/object (CFIT) en route
From Flabob Airport (RIR) to Big Bear City Airport (L35)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA08FA108
- 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
- 1 · 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. 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
- N868PC
- Operator
- Dean W Carson · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Flabob Airport (RIR), Riverside, CATo Big Bear City Airport (L35), Big Bear City, CA
- 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
- Defining eventThe 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
- Controlled flight into terrain/object (CFIT)
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane collided with trees and terrain during a dark night time flight after encountering instrument meteorological weather conditions. The airplane's wreckage was located in mountainous terrain at 8,344 feet mean sea level (msl), 9 miles west of the destination airport. Recorded flight parameter data from the airplane's electronic primary flight display revealed a steady recorded altitude of 8,400 feet for about the last 3 minutes of the flight. Two airmen's meteorological information reports (AIRMETs), both issued about 90 minutes prior to the accident, advised of mountains occasionally obscured by clouds and precipitation, and the presence of turbulence and low-level windshear. Weather observations for the destination airport at 2050 and 2110, which was just prior to the airplane's departure, reported cloud ceilings at 8,400 feet and 7,600 feet msl, respectively. Scattered clouds were reported on the 2130 observation at 7,600 feet and 8,100 feet msl. Based on an analysis of satellite weather data and destination airport weather observations conducted by a Safety Board meteorologist, it is likely that the pilot encountered clouds and turbulence at his flight altitude shortly after 2121 and descended in order to maintain visual flight rules flight. According to the US Naval Observatory, the moon was below the horizon at the time of the accident. Post accident examination of the airframe, flight controls, engine assembly, and accessories revealed no preimpact anomalies.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain altitude/clearance from mountainous terrain. Contributing to the accident were the mountainous terrain, the dark night condition, the turbulent wind condition, and the low clouds.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA08FA108
- Event ID
- 20080416X00496
- Case number
- SEA08FA108
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
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. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2008-04-09.
- API snapshot SHA-256: aed311dfb3a3eaa63d42d09d6b811f129093cb0645a3257d0f184c8128b29a4c; retrieved 2026-09-13T19:02:19.998Z.