CEN15FA040 · Cirrus Design Corp SR22
Cirrus Design Corp SR22 · Accident: loss of control in flight en route
From Washington Municipal Airport (AWG) to Findlay Airport (FDY)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN15FA040
- 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
- 3 · 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
- N811CD
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Washington Municipal Airport (AWG), Washington, IATo Findlay Airport (FDY), Findlay, OH
- Aircraft age
- About 13 years (built 2001)
- 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 · descent
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, not marked as estimated; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Before departing on the instrument flight rules cross-country flight, the private pilot obtained a weather briefing that forecast moderate icing conditions along the intended route. The pilot, a commercial pilot-rated passenger, and a second passenger then departed on the flight in the high-performance, single engine airplane, which was not certified for flight into known icing conditions. Both the pilot and pilot-rated passenger were heard communicating with air traffic controllers during the flight and it could not be determined who was flying the airplane at the time of the accident. About 1 hour, 45 minutes into the flight, the pilot requested a higher altitude and stated to a controller that the airplane was "picking up a little ice." The pilot was granted a higher altitude, which was above the clouds, thus, reducing the potential for icing. About 20 minutes later, the flight began its descent toward the destination airport. Radar contact was lost about 8 minutes later when the airplane was at an altitude of 3,600 ft mean sea level.
Based on an analysis of the weather conditions near the accident site at the time of the accident, the atmosphere was conducive to the formation of supercooled large droplet (SLD) icing. It is likely that, during the descent, the airplane encountered SLD icing, which rapidly accumulated on the airframe to the extent that the airplane could no longer sustain flight. The airplane then entered a steep, uncontrolled descent to ground contact. Due to the night conditions, it is possible that the pilots were not able to visually observe the amount of ice on the airframe or did not realize how quickly the ice was accreting. The airplane was equipped with a parachute system (CAPS) that could be deployed by the pilot in flight. The CAPS rocket motor was found expended; however, the parachute remained in its pack. The investigation could not determine whether the rocket was deployed before impact or as a result of impact forces. There were no observed airplane preimpact anomalies.
Probable cause
The airplane's encounter with supercooled large droplet (SLD) icing, which resulted in a loss of lift and a subsequent uncontrolled descent into terrain. Also causal was the pilot's preflight and in-flight decision to fly in known icing conditions in an airplane that was not certified to do so.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN15FA040
- Event ID
- 20141107X75136
- Case number
- CEN15FA040
- 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, coordinates. 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: 2afe565f670b81d62c2d5a115436b5f5251ace0870f6243223effcb9cd4b5aff; retrieved 2026-09-14T17:28:31.015Z.