ERA18LA098 · Cirrus Design Corp SR20
Cirrus Design Corp SR20 · Accident: loss of control on ground during landing
From Tom B. David Field (CZL) to South Jersey Regional Airport (VAY)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA18LA098
- 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
- Instrument 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
- N101AD
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Tom B. David Field (CZL), Calhoun, GATo South Jersey Regional Airport (VAY), Mount Holly, NJ
- Aircraft age
- About 16 years (built 2002)
- 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
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The private pilot stated that, before departure for a cross-country, personal flight at night in visual conditions, he checked the weather using several online weather resources, which showed that the destination airport was reporting visual meteorological conditions. He reported that, about 30 minutes before the anticipated arrival at the destination airport, it started snowing. He descended the airplane to get out of the snow, but the airplane encountered a temperature inversion, and because snow was accumulating on the wings, the pilot chose to divert to the closest airport. He approached the runway at a higher-than-normal speed, and the airplane ballooned during touchdown and then drifted off the side of the runway. He attempted a go-around, but the airplane could not gain enough airspeed to become airborne, and it subsequently impacted two trucks, which resulted in substantial damage to the airframe.
The pilot reported that there were no mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation. It is likely that the pilot's improper landing flare resulted in the airplane ballooning upon landing and led to his subsequent loss of directional control.
Probable cause
The pilot's improper landing flare, which resulted in the airplane ballooning on touchdown, and his subsequent failure to maintain directional control during the attempted landing and subsequent go-around.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA18LA098
- Event ID
- 20180307X83504
- Case number
- ERA18LA098
- 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, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2018-03-07.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 1544d50d118dfc29a73852bb873c2acedc291dcaa6072b6bd3589dc19937a19c; retrieved 2026-09-16T06:35:39.377Z.