WPR12FA067 · Cirrus Design CORP. SR22
Frank M Smith & Associates Cirrus Design CORP. SR22 · Accident: aircraft wake turbulence encounter on approach
From Show Low Regional Airport (SOW) to Scottsdale Airport (SDL)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR12FA067
- 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
- N7850P
- Operator
- Frank M Smith & Associates
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Show Low Regional Airport (SOW), Show Low, AZTo Scottsdale Airport (SDL), Scottsdale, AZ
- Aircraft age
- About 6 years (built 2005)
- 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
- Aircraft wake turbulence encounter
- 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
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
A review of radar data revealed that the single-engine Cirrus airplane entered the left downwind leg of the traffic pattern for runway 3 as a Gulfstream twin-engine corporate jet was 5 miles to the west for landing. The tower controller instructed the Cirrus pilot to extend his downwind leg to follow the Gulfstream and then instructed him to report when he had the Gulfstream in sight. The Cirrus pilot made his base turn towards the final approach course before reporting the Gulfstream in sight, which resulted in the Cirrus being in very close proximity to the Gulfstream. The Cirrus pilot had the discretion to turn from the extended downwind to the base leg prior to the controller advising him to do so; however, when he made this decision it then became his responsibility to maintain safe separation from the Gulfstream.
After several traffic advisories from the controller to the accident pilot, the pilot finally reported the Gulfstream in sight, at which point the Gulfstream was about 0.11 nautical miles ahead of--and 200 to 300 feet higher than--the Cirrus on final to runway 3. The controller then radioed the Cirrus pilot to stand by for a possible go-around and the pilot replied that he was standing by. The controller instructed the Cirrus pilot to start a climb and go around. Three seconds later, an unidentified pilot radioed the controller that an airplane on final had just gone down; no further communications were received from the Cirrus pilot. About 7 seconds before the accident, the Cirrus was at an altitude of 1,400 feet above ground level. The Gulfstream had passed that location about 30 seconds earlier and 150 feet higher than the Cirrus. The upset and loss of control most likely occurred as a direct result of an encounter with the wake turbulence generated by the Gulfstream while the Cirrus was in trail and on final approach to the runway. An onboard recording device revealed that at 0954 the Cirrus experienced an upset, rolling rapidly from 35 degrees left-wing-down to over 77 degrees left-wing-down, before rapidly rolling to 25 degrees right-wing-down. At this time, the airplane's rate of descent was in excess of 3,000 feet per minute.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain adequate separation behind a corporate jet, which resulted in an encounter with wake turbulence and a subsequent loss of control.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR12FA067
- Event ID
- 20111215X31833
- Case number
- WPR12FA067
- 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: e94b3008e3af0af7f81da2edeb51d0ffeb169791e095c7469979586525ac8aec; retrieved 2026-09-13T22:04:39.202Z.