Robert e Townsend Cirrus Design Corp SR22 incident
Cirrus Design Corp SR22 and Southwest Airlines Boeing 737-7H4 · Incident: near midair/TCAS alert/loss of separation en route
Event
- NTSB case
- OPS11IA428
- 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
- Incident
- 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
- Airline
- 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
Aircraft 1 · 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
- N1487C
- Operator
- Robert e Townsend
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Picayune Municipal Airport (MJD), Picayune, MSTo Kissimmee Gateway Airport (ISM), Kissimmee, 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
- 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
- Near midair/TCAS alert/loss of separation
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- None
Aircraft 2 · Boeing 737-7H4
- Aircraft type
- Boeing 737
- 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
- N293WN
- Operator
- Southwest Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport (PHX), Phoenix, AZTo Orlando International Airport (MCO), 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 121: Air Carrier
- 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
- Not recorded
- 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
- Not recorded
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- None
Cause areas
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
A loss of separation occurred between a Boeing B737-700 and a Cirrus SR-22. The minimum required instrument flight rules separation between these two aircraft was 1000 feet vertical or 3 nautical miles lateral. The Cirrus had been out of radio contact with air traffic controllers for approximately 90 minutes. Air traffic controllers at the approach control facility requested that the flight crew of the B737 fly as close as safety permits to the Cirrus to look for any visual indications of problems or difficulties. The flight crew of the B737 agreed to the request. The closest point of approach between the two aircraft, both assigned operating altitudes of 11,000 feet mean sea level, was 100 feet vertical and 0.1 mile lateral.
Probable cause
The air traffic controllers’ application of inappropriate separation between the B737 and the Cirrus and their inappropriate use of airborne civilian aircraft for observation of other airborne aircraft. Contributing to the incident was the crew of the B737's execution of a clearance that resulted in operation near other aircraft.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record OPS11IA428
- Event ID
- 20110330X05145
- Case number
- OPS11IA428
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
Source notes (5)
- 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, damage. 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: 41647dd50a71d56fc58faf8094aa311669aae4c0c1616f42ca67b796d7f6f51b; retrieved 2026-09-13T18:18:11.511Z.
- Corrected after a review of the NTSB narrative, which states these values explicitly: destination. Typo in city name; airport code ISM is Kissimmee Gateway Airport, Kissimmee, FL.