ERA18LA124 · Cirrus SR22
Cirrus SR22 · Accident: loss of control in flight en route
From Bedford County Airport (HMZ) to Montreal Mirabel International Airport (CYMX)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA18LA124
- 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 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
- C-GMDQ
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Bedford County Airport (HMZ), Bedord, PATo Montreal Mirabel International Airport (CYMX), Mirabel
- Aircraft age
- About 15 years (built 2003)
- 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 · cruise
- 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
- Personnel issues › Psychological
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane was on a cross-country flight at 9,000 ft mean sea level, which was about 1,000 ft above clouds. At that time, the private pilot had the autopilot engaged and in navigation mode for the airplane to proceed directly to the next waypoint. An air traffic controller requested that the pilot turn right 20° or more, which the pilot complied with by switching the autopilot to heading mode and selecting the desired heading. Subsequently, the controller advised the pilot that he could proceed back on course. The pilot switched the autopilot back to navigation mode but did not select the next waypoint on the GPS. He realized immediately that he was returning to his previous navigation course and then selected the next waypoint on the GPS and again selected navigation mode on the autopilot. By the time he returned his attention to the primary flight display, the airplane was descending out of control through clouds, and the pilot subsequently activated the airplane's parachute system. The airplane descended via parachute and landed upright in a field, but wind gusts blew the parachute, which inverted the airplane. Examination of the wreckage revealed that during the hard landing, the nose landing gear collapsed and both main landing gear spread outward, which resulted in substantial damage to the primary structure of the airplane.
The primary flight display did not record any data. Thus, the investigation could not determine if the autopilot was engaged when the airplane departed controlled flight. However, regardless of whether or not the autopilot was engaged, it is likely that the pilot's attention was diverted to the GPS, which resulted in his failure to adequately monitor the airplane's attitude and maintain control of the airplane.
Probable cause
The pilot's diverted attention, which resulted in his inadequate monitoring of the airplane's attitude and a loss of control in flight.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA18LA124
- Event ID
- 20180408X74908
- Case number
- ERA18LA124
- 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: 3be683479862814625e77779500998c891d8a29d78b5c78dc4169f502d4beffb; retrieved 2026-09-16T06:47:47.778Z.