ERA19FA251 · Cirrus SR22 Undesignat
Trident Aircraft Cirrus SR22 Undesignat · Accident: fire/smoke (non-impact) en route
From Richmond International Airport (RIC) to Easton Airport / Newnam Field (ESN)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA19FA251
- 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
- N621JE
- Operator
- Trident Aircraft
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Richmond International Airport (RIC), Richmond, VATo Easton Airport / Newnam Field (ESN), Easton, MD
- Aircraft age
- About 13 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
- En route
- 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
- Fire/smoke (non-impact)
- 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
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Environmental issues › Task environment
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that, during a cross-country flight in night visual meteorological conditions, he noticed fumes in the cockpit upon reaching a cruise altitude of 3,500 ft mean sea level. He reported the fumes to air traffic control and diverted to the nearest airport. Shortly thereafter, he noticed smoke in the cockpit and attempted to land at the diversion airport, but the airplane was too high to land, and he performed a go-around. After the first landing attempt, he turned off the air conditioner and electrical system and attempted to land again but was unable to do so due to the darkness and smoke in the cockpit. He subsequently decided to deploy the airframe parachute system. The pilot did not recall anything else due to his injuries.
Examination of the wreckage and the airplane's non-volatile memory did not reveal any preimpact electrical or mechanical anomalies that would have resulted in smoke in the cabin; therefore, the reason for the reported fumes and smoke could not be determined.
Probable cause
The pilot's inability to land on the runway in dark night conditions with reported smoke in the cockpit, which necessitated the deployment of the airplane's parachute system.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA19FA251
- Event ID
- 20190819X74817
- Case number
- ERA19FA251
- 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: f3f0100dfdeff22c981c459f88ebe55dae9e4db9f4bd46272ad8c90aa5eddecd; retrieved 2026-09-16T09:48:13.779Z.