GAA17CA201 · Cirrus Design Corp SR22
DRC Air Cirrus Design Corp SR22 · Accident: hard landing
From Greenville Downtown Airport (KGMU) to DeKalb Peachtree Airport (PDK)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA17CA201
- 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 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
- N146GS
- Operator
- DRC Air
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Greenville Downtown Airport (KGMU), Greenville, SCTo DeKalb Peachtree Airport (PDK), Atlanta, GA
- Aircraft age
- About 10 years (built 2007)
- 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 · flare/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
- Hard landing
- 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 of the airplane reported that he had recently completed flight training from the manufacturer. The accident flight was conducted under instrument flight rules (IFR). During the first approach to land, the pilot reported that the airspeed was too fast and that he decided to go around. He canceled the IFR flight plan, squawked 1200, and remained in the traffic pattern. During his second approach, the airspeed was again too fast, but he attempted to land. The airplane bounced three times, and during the ascent of the third bounce, the pilot added full power and attempted to go around. The airplane veered left, and he attempted to counter the veer with full right rudder application. However, the airplane touched down hard and exited the runway to left. The nose gear collapsed, and the airplane slid across the safety area before coming to rest upright. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the firewall.
The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot’s use of excessive airspeed during the approach, which resulted in a bounced, hard landing and subsequent loss of directional control during an attempted go-around.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA17CA201
- Event ID
- 20170323X53116
- Case number
- GAA17CA201
- 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: ac95fd03371ade032cb5afe178f122f7a28e2c312bd0a8e6a61d4c74f7e782d1; retrieved 2026-09-16T05:07:03.195Z.