CEN11FA629 · Cirrus Design Corp SR22
Cirrus Design Corp SR22 · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Bellefontaine Regional Airport (EDJ) to Greene County/Lewis A. Jackson Regional Airport (I19)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN11FA629
- 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
- N159JW
- Operator
- Jeffrey S. Watson · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Bellefontaine Regional Airport (EDJ), Bellefontaine, OHTo Greene County/Lewis A. Jackson Regional Airport (I19), Jackson County, OH
- Aircraft age
- About 7 years (built 2004)
- 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
- Maneuvering · aerobatics
- 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
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Several witnesses reported hearing a low-flying airplane. One witness stated that he heard the engine go silent three times and then rev back up twice and that he saw the airplane in about a 75-degree nose-low attitude. Another witness stated that he observed the airplane complete a 360-degree loop and then go into a "direct vertical climb, reach its pinnacle, and begin to fall tail first with a partial spin." He lost sight of the airplane behind trees. He then heard a "thud" and observed a black mushroom cloud appear above the tree line. Radar track data showed an airplane with a ground speed of 40 knots near the accident site at the time of the accident; the track was consistent with the performance of the aerobatic maneuver described by the witnesses. At the time of the accident, the sky was overcast with low clouds. The examination of the wreckage indicated that the airplane impacted the ground in about a 45-degree nose-low attitude. The examination of the airframe and engine revealed no evidence of mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation. Toxicological reports indicate that, at the time of the accident, the pilot had recently used at least five impairing drugs: diazepam, codeine, oxycodone, hydrocodone, and marijuana. All of these drugs work synergistically to create psychomotor slowing and interfere with judgment and executive functioning. It is very likely that the pilot was impaired by drug use at the time of the accident.
Probable cause
The pilot’s improper decision to fly aerobatic maneuvers at low altitude, which resulted in a loss of control and impact with terrain. Contributing to the accident was the pilot’s impairment due to his recent use of multiple impairing drugs.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN11FA629
- Event ID
- 20110908X35846
- Case number
- CEN11FA629
- 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. 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: 5cfdc5d64acdcdac68c2721421217f3e360859c66402ea9d67cda9a17697a27a; retrieved 2026-09-13T21:48:58.130Z.