ERA22LA125 · Cirrus Design Corp SR22
Cirrus Design Corp SR22 · Accident: inflight upset on approach
From Harnett Regional Jetport Airport (HRJ) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA22LA125
- 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
- Event fatalities
- Unknown
- 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
- 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
- N987AA
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Harnett Regional Jetport Airport (HRJ), Erwin, NCTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 19 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
- Approach · VFR pattern final
- 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
- Inflight upset
- 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
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The Cirrus pilot reported making a radio call on what he thought was the published common traffic advisory frequency (CTAF) when the flight was 10 miles away, then continued to the airport for a straight-in approach to runway 23 making radio calls. During the same time frame, a flightcrew member of an Army helicopter announced on the CTAF when their flight was on 10, 5, and 2 nautical mile final for runway 5. The Cirrus pilot indicated that he did not hear any communication on the CTAF and he was unable to activate the runway lights using the CTAF. When the Cirrus flight was between 2 and 3 miles from the airport, he saw a helicopter at the opposite end of the runway moving to the east, adding that the sun was in his eyes which was “definitely a factor.” He did not hear the helicopter on the selected CTAF frequency and made a radio call on the CTAF that he was on short final approach. A flightcrew member of the military helicopter reported they did not hear any advisory call from the airplane and after they spotted it, the IP took the controls and turned to the right (east) to avoid a collision. The Cirrus pilot indicated that after flying over the airport property fence, he looked to his left and noted a military helicopter several hundred feet above his altitude. He continued his descent to runway 23 and when the flight was about 15 to 20 ft AGL the flight encountered, “very strong turbulence” which caused the left wing to drop. He recovered from that and then when the flight was between 5 and 10 ft AGL encountered another round of “very strong turbulence” which made the right wing contact the runway resulting in substantial damage to the wing. The airplane went to the right and skidded into the grass. The military helicopter continued to the east and reported that since they could not affect the situation continued with the training.
A short audio recording of the CTAF recorded a flightcrew member of the military helicopter announcing they were on a 2 mile final for runway 5, followed by an announcement that they were departing to the east off of runway centerline.
Postaccident examination of the radios of the Cirrus airplane revealed the pilot had selected the #2 radio to transmit, which was set to 122.700 MHz. That frequency was the departure airport CTAF. The accident airport published CTAF was 123.05MHz.
Probable cause
The in-flight encounter while on final approach with high-speed trailing vortices from a military helicopter, resulting in abnormal runway contact. Contributing to the accident was the Cirrus pilot’s incorrect selection of the common traffic advisory frequency on the aircraft’s radio.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA22LA125
- Event ID
- 20220216104648
- Case number
- ERA22LA125
- 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, cause areas. 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: 8067cad64015384f386708551a54f8475934e864b13bdea10a4747014c104a3c; retrieved 2026-09-16T14:57:50.226Z.