GAA18CA308 · Cirrus Design Corp SR22 UNDESIGNAT
Fly Up Cirrus Design Corp SR22 UNDESIGNAT · Accident: birdstrike during initial climb
From George T Lewis Airport (CDK) to North Perry Airport (HWO)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA18CA308
- 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 UNDESIGNAT
- 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
- N269DW
- Operator
- Fly Up
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From George T Lewis Airport (CDK), Cedar Key, FLTo North Perry Airport (HWO), Hollywood, FL
- Aircraft age
- About 12 years (built 2006)
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Birdstrike
- 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 › Physical environment
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the pilot, during initial climb, about 90 ft above ground level, the airplane flew through a flock of canary-size birds. He reported that, after the bird strikes, the airplane continued to climb, but the "prop then became unbalanced causing a violent vibration," followed by a steep left bank and then a right bank. He recalled that the airspeed decreased, and the stall warning horn sounded, and about 5 seconds later, the airplane impacted a body of water adjacent to the airport in a 60° left bank.
Photographs provided by Federal Aviation Administration aviation safety inspector showed that the airplane sustained substantial damage to both wings and the fuselage.
The pilot reported that there were no mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The airplane’s collision with multiple birds during initial climb, which damaged the propeller and resulted in a subsequent aerodynamic stall because the airspeed could not be maintained.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA18CA308
- Event ID
- 20180529X73931
- Case number
- GAA18CA308
- 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: de891632238b19a4537233e145fad2c3306e4aeade6268560e66ce94190f489f; retrieved 2026-09-16T07:19:16.012Z.