ERA23FA182 · Cirrus Design Corp SR22
Cirrus Design Corp SR22 · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Fernandina Beach Municipal Airport (FHB) to Jesup Wayne County Airport (JES)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA23FA182
- 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
- 1 · 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
- Instrument 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
- N911TK
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Fernandina Beach Municipal Airport (FHB), Fernandina Beach, FLTo Jesup Wayne County Airport (JES), Jesup, GA
- Aircraft age
- About 19 years (built 2004)
- 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
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- 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 instrument-rated private pilot was commuting to work in his airplane. The pilot did not request any air traffic control services for the 22-minute flight, and the airspace at the destination airport was not tower-controlled. Recorded track data revealed that the pilot began a descent to the destination airport and crossed over the approach end of the runway on a heading perpendicular to the runway heading. He then made two turns of about 180° while flying at airspeeds near the airplane’s published stall speed, and reached about 40° of bank during each turn. Additionally, the post-accident position of the flaps suggested that at least the final phase of this maneuvering was being performed with the wing flaps retracted. The airplane impacted terrain about 1,200 ft short of the runway approach end and about 40 ft north of runway centerline. Although there was an instrument approach procedure for the runway, the track data revealed that there was no attempt by the pilot to execute it. The lowest weather minimums for the approach required at least one mile visibility. Weather at the destination airport at the time of the accident included a 300-ft ceiling, ¼ mile visibility in fog, and calm wind. The weather conditions cleared about an hour after the accident.
A postaccident examination of the wreckage did not reveal evidence of a mechanical malfunction or anomaly that would have precluded normal operation. Engine operation was recorded on the onboard avionics and revealed increasing power at impact consistent with the pilot advancing the throttle.
Based on this information, it is likely that the pilot attempted to fly under the low overcast while trying to acquire the airport visually. During this attempt, he excessively banked the airplane at slow speed, and with the wing flaps retracted, exceeded the airplane’s critical angle of attack, and lost control of the airplane, resulting in a collision with terrain. His tendency to not be late for appointments may have added self-induced pressure and affected his decision-making during the flight.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain adequate airspeed and his exceedance of the airplane’s critical angle of attack, which resulted in a loss of control while maneuvering for a visual landing in low ceiling and low visibility conditions. Contributing to the accident was the pilot’s decision to attempt a visual landing in low visibility conditions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA23FA182
- Event ID
- 20230406107019
- Case number
- ERA23FA182
- 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: 884f903d91cbb7370ee41eddc6fda4b371a0b880af5ee876255bfa24c6e461f3; retrieved 2026-09-15T07:58:34.391Z.