CEN23LA017 · Cirrus Design Corp SR22
Cirrus Design Corp SR22 · Accident: loss of control in flight during landing
From St George Regional Airport (SGU) to Northern Colorado Regional Airport (FNL)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN23LA017
- 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
- N25HW
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From St George Regional Airport (SGU), St. George, UTTo Northern Colorado Regional Airport (FNL), Loveland, CO
- Aircraft age
- About 16 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
- Landing
- 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
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that the airplane encountered low-level wind shear as it crossed the runway threshold while landing. He stated that as he was about to flare for landing, the airplane encountered a strong crosswind from the right causing it to drift toward the left side of the runway. He initiated a go-around; however, the engine made a “coughing” sound and lost power.
ADS-B data revealed that, about 3 seconds after crossing the runway threshold, the airplane began drifting toward the left side of the runway. The final data point was recorded about 2 seconds later, as the airplane was about 10 ft from the left side of the runway. The airplane impacted the terrain and came to rest upright about 300 ft off the side of the runway and about 1,000 ft from the approach threshold.
Postaccident airplane examination did not reveal any anomalies consistent with an inability of the engine to produce rated power. Flight control continuity was established from each control surface to the corresponding cockpit controls.
At the time of the accident, the pilot encountered a 90° direct crosswind, gusting to 31 knots. The pilot’s operating handbook (POH) noted that the maximum allowable crosswind velocity depends on pilot capability and airplane limitations. However, demonstrated crosswind landings were limited to 20 knots.
Probable cause
The pilot’s loss of control after encountering windshear while landing in a strong, gusting crosswind. Contributing was pilot’s decision to continue the landing with a 90-degree crosswind at 30 knots.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN23LA017
- Event ID
- 20221024106178
- Case number
- CEN23LA017
- 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, coordinates, 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: 46aa88b227a9c2dffe44bc7c684f145d500c1be653085bffa342b2c0325cf787; retrieved 2026-09-16T16:18:38.712Z.