Cirrus SR22 N80KW

Summary

On 6 October 2012 at about 17:17 local time, a Cirrus SR22 registered N80KW, operated by Billy Sprague, was involved in an accident near Birmingham, Alabama, United States. 2 people were on board and one was seriously injured, one had minor injuries. The aircraft was substantially damaged. The NTSB has published a probable cause for this accident; it is quoted in full below.

Date

6 October 2012 at 17:17

Classification

Accident

Location

Birmingham, Alabama, United States

Nearest airport

Birmingham International (BHM)

Coordinates

33.5639, -86.7522

Aircraft

Cirrus SR22

Registration

N80KW

Category

Airplane

Engines

1

Operator

Billy Sprague

Operating rule

Part 91: General Aviation

Purpose of flight

Personal

Phase of flight

Not recorded

Route

Kansas City → Birmingham

Aircraft damage

Substantial

Weather

IMC

Light

Day

NTSB number

ERA13LA012

1 person was seriously injured.

The pilot's failure to maintain airplane control during a missed approach in instrument meteorological conditions. Contributing to the accident was the pilot's overreliance on the autopilot system and his inability to hand-fly the airplane once the autopilot was disconnected.

Quoted verbatim from the NTSB record. This site does not paraphrase or interpret it.

Read the full NTSB narrative

The airplane was in instrument meteorological conditions, and the pilot intended to fly an instrument landing system approach. Review of non-volatile memory data revealed that the autopilot approach mode was armed as the airplane intercepted the localizer course and was descending toward 2,600 feet mean sea level (msl). At that time, the autopilot was selected to vertical speed (VS) mode with the altitude armed rather than selected to the altitude mode, which is one of the criteria for automatically arming the glideslope (GS) mode later in the approach. About 1 minute later, the autopilot automatically cancelled the VS mode and switched to altitude mode as the airplane reached 2,600 feet msl. However, at that time the airplane was above the glideslope by 53 percent needle deflection. The autopilot will not automatically arm the GS mode unless, in addition to the altitude mode being selected, the airplane is more than 10 percent needle deflection below the glideslope. As a result, the airplane remained above the glideslope until the autopilot was disconnected about 1 minute later. The pilot then attempted to hand-fly a missed approach; however, he was unable to maintain the heading or altitude assigned by air traffic control. He subsequently lost control of the airplane during a turn and elected to deploy the airplane's parachute system. The airplane came to rest in a vacant lot.

Quoted verbatim from the NTSB record.