GAA19CA306 · Cirrus SR22 Undesignat
Cirrus SR22 Undesignat · Accident: hard landing
From Centennial Airport (APA) to Centennial Airport (APA)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA19CA306
- 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 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
- N581SD
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Centennial Airport (APA), Denver, COTo Centennial Airport (APA), Denver, CO
- Aircraft age
- About 11 years (built 2008)
- 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
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot under instruction reported that he had recently purchased the airplane and that the accident occurred during his third dual-instruction flight in the airplane. The flight instructor requested a short approach to accomplish a simulated engine failure approach and landing. The pilot reported that ground instruction for the simulated engine failure was never accomplished. The instructor requested a simulated emergency landing on runway 17, which was denied by the tower controller due to traffic. The instructor then requested a simulated emergency landing on runway 28, which the tower controller approved. The airplane intersected the extended centerline of runway 28 at a 45° angle. The instructor told the pilot to reduce the power to idle and initiate the approach at 100 knots. The pilot recalled that, by the time glide speed was established, "we were on top of the numbers." The instructor told the pilot to turn right, but he believed that it was too late to turn and align the airplane with the runway heading. The airplane touched down hard on the left edge of the runway, exited the left side of the runway, and impacted runway lights.
The flight instructor reported that he had provided the pilot ground instruction on how to execute a power-off landing at least twice. The instructor added that, when he told the pilot to start turning, he did not respond and that, after the airplane overshot the right turn point toward the runway, he took the controls, leveled the airplane, and then applied full power. After the airplane exited the left side of the runway, he pulled the power off. His hand was on top of the pilot's, who subsequently added full power. The instructor reduced the power, but the pilot added full power again. The instructor was able to steer the airplane and stop it on the runway.
A review of surveillance footage of the accident provided by the Federal Aviation Administration revealed that, during the approach, the airplane converged on about a 45° angle toward runway 28. When the airplane approached the runway numbers, the right wing dropped rapidly, and the nose pitched up. Seconds later, the left wing dropped rapidly, and the airplane impacted the left side of the runway just before reaching the runway aim point markings. The airplane exited the left side of the runway and collided with runway lighting. The airplane remained upright and returned to the runway surface before coming to a stop about mid-field. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the elevator and vertical stabilizer. Both pilots reported that there were no preaccident mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot's improper control inputs on approach, which resulted in a hard landing near the runway edge, a runway excursion, and impact with runway lighting. Contributing to the accident was the flight instructor's delayed remedial action.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA19CA306
- Event ID
- 20190603X43739
- Case number
- GAA19CA306
- 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: 0ce0b674707883523580600828d74458e6ff9c0fb0d062eb095d6290584746c6; retrieved 2026-09-16T09:08:06.844Z.