ERA12FA030 · Cirrus Design Corp SR22
Cirrus Design Corp SR22 · Accident: controlled flight into terrain/object (CFIT) on approach
From Easton Airport / Newnam Field (ESN) to Danbury Municipal Airport (DXR)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA12FA030
- 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
- 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
- N438CP
- Operator
- Peter L Woodsmall · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Easton Airport / Newnam Field (ESN), Easton, MDTo Danbury Municipal Airport (DXR), Danbury, CT
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern final
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While on final approach in night visual conditions, the airplane struck a lighted 100-foot-tall hazard beacon tower. The purpose of the hazard beacon tower was to alert pilots to an area of higher terrain (a hill) prior to the runway. The tower was located about 3/4 mile from the runway threshold, and its top was 750 feet mean sea level (msl), which was 292 feet above the airport elevation of 458 feet msl. Two flashing red lights located at the top of the tower were operating at the time of impact. Additionally, the runway had a displaced threshold of 734 feet. To strike the tower, the pilot had to fly a lower-than-standard approach. Further, the pilot could have altered course left or right to clear the tower. Examination of the wreckage and the airplane’s non-volatile memory did not reveal any preimpact mechanical malfunctions. There was no record of the pilot previously flying to the destination airport.
Probable cause
The pilot did not maintain clearance from a lighted tower during final approach in night visual conditions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA12FA030
- Event ID
- 20111016X20208
- Case number
- ERA12FA030
- 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 2011-10-17.
- API snapshot SHA-256: e84b5d258a2a436dcd85ee49b00e2fd9b0b2616c790d772f286ed5d0011a3730; retrieved 2026-09-13T21:55:19.228Z.