WPR13LA145 · Cirrus Design Corp SR20
Justice Aviation Cirrus Design Corp SR20 · Accident: runway excursion during landing
From Meadows Field (KBFL) to Kern Valley Airport (KL05)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR13LA145
- 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 SR20
- Aircraft type
- Cirrus SR20
- 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
- N427GE
- Operator
- Justice Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Meadows Field (KBFL), Bakersfield, CATo Kern Valley Airport (KL05), Kernville, CA
- 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
- Landing · aborted after touchdown
- 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
- Runway excursion
- 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 as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that, while in the landing flare with the flaps configured full down, the airplane drifted right, and he then decided to execute a go-around. After he added power for the go-around, the left main wheel contacted the runway, and the airplane then veered left, continued off the left side of the runway, and impacted a ditch.
Flight data from the primary flight display showed that the airplane had a high engine rpm and a 9-degree left bank with a 17-degree nose-up pitch attitude and was at an airspeed of 56 knots during the attempted go-around. The Pilot's Operating Handbook states that, during a go-around, the best angle-of-climb airspeed (between 81 and 83 knots indicated airspeed [KIAS]) should be set and maintained and that the flaps should then be retracted. It also states that, if the airplane is configured with full flaps in a 15-degree bank angle, it will stall between 55 and 57 KIAS. It is likely that the excessive pitch angle and low airspeed during the go-around attempt resulted in an aerodynamic stall.
Probable cause
The pilot’s application of excessive pitch and his failure to achieve adequate airspeed during the go-around attempt, which resulted in an aerodynamic stall.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR13LA145
- Event ID
- 20130312X35227
- Case number
- WPR13LA145
- 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: 79266a71935188555d75908ee2fc31568abd09977815bbe666e6d0cf4cf3bb6d; retrieved 2026-09-15T21:04:10.640Z.