GAA16CA251 · Cirrus SR22 T
HAM Aviation Cirrus SR22 T · Accident: loss of control on ground during landing
From Salisbury Ocean City Wicomico Regional Airport (SBY) to Church Hill, MD (private airstrip)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA16CA251
- 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 SR22 T
- 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
- N27ML
- Operator
- HAM Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Salisbury Ocean City Wicomico Regional Airport (SBY), Salisbury, MDTo Church Hill, MD (private airstrip)
- Aircraft age
- Built the same year (2016)
- 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 · landing roll
- 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 on ground
- 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 › Operating environment
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the pilot, he was landing on a remote, unlighted, airstrip at night, and reported that on approach he had remained high for obstacle clearance. He reported that upon touchdown he immediately applied maximum braking, and the airplane started to slow. However, the end of the runway was approaching rapidly and he believed that a runway overrun was imminent. He reported that he released the left brake input and held the right brake input in an attempt to turn the airplane to the right; aiming for an open field. He recalled that the airplane turned to the right, exited the runway, rotated to the right while skidding, and the left main landing gear collapsed. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the left main landing gear attachment point and a left wing rib.
The pilot reported that there were no mechanical anomalies or malfunctions with any portion of the airplane that would have prevented normal flight operations.
Probable cause
The pilot's decision to land on an unlighted grass airstrip at night, resulting in landing long, a loss of directional control, and collapsed landing gear producing substantial damage to the landing gear attachment point and left wing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA16CA251
- Event ID
- 20160523X33429
- Case number
- GAA16CA251
- 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 2016-04-21.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 8b109783fc05294f6412e97b10a67df666169a345da4e7f0b8132da8f82ab9ee; retrieved 2026-09-16T03:25:15.978Z.