Colorado Aviation Accidents & Incidents

On February 14, 2009, approximately 1115 mountain standard time, a Cirrus SR22, N486CD, registered to and operated by Vector Resources LLC, Denver, Colorado, was substantially damaged when, during an attempted go-around, it struck a snow berm and nosed over at Bob Adams Field (SBS), Steamboat Springs, Colorado. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed at the time of the accident. The personal flight was being conducted under the provisions of Title 14 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Part 91, and a visual flight rules (VFR) flight plan had been filed and activated. One passenger, the pilot's wife, received a minor injury, but the pilot and two other passengers, his daughters, were not injured. The cross-country flight originated from Centennial Airport (APA), Englewood, Colorado, approximately 1015, and was en route to SBS.

The pilot said he received a full weather briefing from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Flight Service Station (FSS). There were no NOTAMs (Notice to Airmen) for snow or ice on the SBS runways. The pilot executed a GPS (Global Positioning System) E approach to runway 32. Because the runway has a displaced threshold and because he was flying the GPS-E approach, his touchdown point was the south runway marker, or 1,000 feet from the runway threshold. The airplane touched down between 80 to 90 knots. The pilot said he did not apply "hard" brakes because he had been "conditioned to be conservative with the brakes" to avoid overheating them. As he passed taxiway B and started applying the brakes, the airplane hit a patch of ice and turned sideways to the right. The pilot was able to realign the airplane with the runway, but he was approximately 800 to 1,000 feet from the runway's end and still traveling approximately 50 knots. He decided to make a go-around. As the airplane lifted off, the landing gear struck a snow berm at the end of the runway and the airplane came to rest inverted about 50 feet beyond the end of the runway. The vertical stabilizer was torn off the airplane, and the horizontal stabilizer was buckled. Both wing tips and the right wing lower skin were buckled. The nose and engine were displaced to the left.

Impact forces caused the front seat airbag to deploy. As a result, a team of NTSB survival experts traveled to SBS to examine the airplane and its restraint systems (see SURVIVAL FACTORS FACTUAL REPORT).

The airplane was equipped with Avidyne Entegra Primary Flight Display (PFD) and Multi-Function Displays (MFD). The PFD and the compact flash card from the MFD were transported to NTSB's Vehicle Recorder Division for download (see VEHICLE RECORDER FACTUAL REPORT). In addition to graphical presentation, data was pictorially depicted on Google Earth (see attached). This data corroborates the pilot's description of events. The pilot's failure to apply brakes in a timely manner while landing on a snow-packed, ice-covered runway, and his delay in executing a go-around.