FlightFollowerMicroburst Windshear Slams Caravan During Go-Around at SLC
The Go-Around Was the Right Decision — But the Weather Was Still There
Cessna 208B N877FE arrived at Salt Lake City International Airport on July 13, 2022, with thunderstorms and windshear already affecting the airport. The pilot had received multiple weather warnings, including a report of a 20-knot windshear gain on final.
Accident Facts
- Date
- 13 July 2022
- Aircraft
- Cessna 208B, N877FE
- Location
- Salt Lake City International Airport, Utah
- Operation
- Part 135 cargo flight
- Outcome
- Pilot minor injury; aircraft substantially damaged
- Investigation
- NTSB WPR22LA251
The aircraft was cleared for a visual approach behind a Boeing 757. During the landing flare, the Caravan began drifting sideways. The pilot could not maintain directional control and initiated a go-around.
The go-around removed the airplane from an uncontrolled landing, but it did not remove the microburst. At about 30 feet above ground level, the pilot lowered the left wing to counter the drift. A downdraft then forced the aircraft back toward the ground.
The NTSB reconstruction shows that the airport was already producing multiple warning signs. ATC had a windshear PIREP, the preceding Boeing 757 reported windshear, and controllers issued additional windshear alerts.
At the same time, the tower's own wind sensor did not fully represent the conditions affecting the accident area. Around the accident time, the tower sensor reported a much weaker gust than the airport's ASOS. The tower's windshear detection systems also did not generate a microburst alert until after the accident.
The result was a classic low-level weather problem: different sensors were seeing different parts of a rapidly changing wind field.
The Go-Around Became a New Exposure
The pilot's decision to go around was a reasonable response to losing directional control during the flare. But the airplane remained only a few feet above the surface while the convective outflow continued.
The NTSB later used this accident as the basis for broader recommendations about wind-sensor placement and windshear detection at Salt Lake City.
What the Records Show
The NTSB determined: “The pilot’s inability to maintain control of the airplane when it encountered a microburst during a landing attempt and a go-around near known thunderstorm activity.”
The Board also identified inadequate wind-sensor and windshear-detection coverage used by the tower as a contributing factor.
A Broader System Safety Case
This accident is more useful than a simple pilot-error narrative because the investigation identified weaknesses on both sides of the runway environment.
The pilot had multiple warnings, but the actual wind field changed rapidly. The tower had sensors and alerts, but their placement did not provide a complete picture of the conditions affecting the runway. The preceding Boeing 757's report was therefore particularly valuable because it provided direct aircraft experience in the same environment.
The NTSB subsequently recommended improvements to wind detection at Salt Lake City. That turns the accident from a single aircraft event into a system-safety lesson about how airports detect and communicate rapidly changing convective hazards.
- A go-around in convective weather does not remove windshear exposure.
- Reports from preceding aircraft can be critical when surface sensors disagree.
- Airport wind sensors must cover the areas that matter to arriving and departing aircraft.
- Microbursts can overwhelm an aircraft at extremely low altitude.
- A go-around should be initiated before directional control is lost, but the weather environment must still be respected.