ERA09LA189 · Cirrus Design Corp SR22
Air Box Cirrus Design Corp SR22 · Accident: loss of control in flight during takeoff
From Montauk Airport (MTP) to Montauk Airport (MTP)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA09LA189
- 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 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
- N574PG
- Operator
- Air Box
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Montauk Airport (MTP), Montauk, NYTo Montauk Airport (MTP), Montauk, NY
- 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
- Takeoff
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The certified flight instructor (CFI) instructed his student to simulate a soft-field takeoff. The student began the takeoff roll, rotated, and momentarily got the airplane into ground effect. The main landing gear then settled back onto the runway, the airplane rolled and yawed to the right, and then collided with a ditch. The CFI had never demonstrated the accident maneuver to the student nor did he provide any formal ground instruction on its execution. There was no formal exchange of aircraft control between the student and CFI, and the student remained on the controls throughout the accident sequence as the CFI tried to effect a recovery. Neither the CFI nor student reported any flight control anomalies or malfunctions and examination of the wreckage did not reveal any. A weather observation at the accident airport about the time of the accident indicated that the wind was calm.
Probable cause
The student pilot's failure to maintain directional control during takeoff. Contributing to the accident was the instructor's delayed remedial action.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA09LA189
- Event ID
- 20090309X43538
- Case number
- ERA09LA189
- 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: 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: 8e780f4fdfa3bfd9b77f8e441ce00a083f10b2405fccd6a4dec11522d4a11de0; retrieved 2026-09-15T10:49:03.148Z.