CEN15LA069 · Cirrus Design Corp SR20
Cirrus Design Corp SR20 · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Northern Colorado Regional Airport (FNL) to Northern Colorado Regional Airport (FNL)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN15LA069
- 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
- N407ND
- Operator
- Cirrus
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Northern Colorado Regional Airport (FNL), Fort Collins, COTo Northern Colorado Regional Airport (FNL), Fort Collins, CO
- Aircraft age
- About 9 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
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- 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
The student pilot was conducting a solo flight in a Cirrus SR20 airplane at an uncontrolled airport. An airport video showed the student attempting to land on a runway about 30 seconds after the departure of a Sikorsky UH-60 helicopter. The student pilot reported that he was aware of the helicopter and that he attempted to land long. However, just before touchdown, the airplane encountered the wake turbulence of the helicopter and then entered an uncommanded steep left bank. The student attempted to counter the left bank and go around, but he was unable to maintain airplane control. The airplane subsequently impacted left of the runway and cartwheeled.
Current Federal Aviation Administration pilot guidance, including the Airman's Information Manual and an advisory circular on aircraft wake turbulence, does not recommend separation criteria for a small airplane following a helicopter. It is likely that the student pilot did not comprehend the significance of the wake turbulence that the helicopter would generate during departure.
Probable cause
The student pilot’s failure to comprehend the significance of the wake turbulence that a preceding helicopter would generate during departure, which resulted in a loss of airplane control during landing. Contributing to the accident was the lack of Federal Aviation Administration wake turbulence separation criteria for a small airplane following a helicopter.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN15LA069
- Event ID
- 20141208X21730
- Case number
- CEN15LA069
- 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: a6ca2684d13c3f893426421b5fb7e4bf08cab34477f3a64063cd617137fbc9c5; retrieved 2026-09-16T01:58:02.124Z.