NYC94FA052 · Cessna 340
James Flying Service Cessna 340 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather on approach
From Trenton Mercer Airport (TTN) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC94FA052
- 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
- 2 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- 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
Cessna 340
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 340
- 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
- N512SK
- Operator
- James Flying Service
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Trenton Mercer Airport (TTN), Trenton, NJTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- 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 · IFR final approach
- First occurrenceThe 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
- In flight encounter with weather
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Stall
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, not maintained
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL HAD CLEARED THE AIRPLANE FOR THE ILS APPROACH TO RUNWAY 24, CIRCLE TO LAND ON RUNWAY 06. THE AIRPLANE BROKE OFF THE APPROACH TO RUNWAY 24, AND WAS OBSERVED BY A WITNESS AT A LOW ALTITUDE, ON A LEFT DOWNWIND FOR RUNWAY 06, FLYING IN AND OUT OF CLOUDS. ON THE BASE LEG, THE AIRPLANE TURNED TO THE LEFT, AND A WITNESS SAW THE LEFT WING MAKE CONTACT WITH THE GROUND. ONE WITNESS SAID THAT BEFORE THE CRASH, THE ENGINE SOUNDED 'LIKE THEY WERE AT FULL RPM. SEVERAL PILOTS FROM THE AIR NATIONAL GUARD (ANG) AT THE AIRPORT WENT TO THE CRASH SITE MINUTES AFTER THE CRASH, AND OBSERVED ICE ON THE AIRPLANE'S WINGS AND EMPENNAGE. ONE OF THE ANG PILOT REPORTED HIS OBSERVATION OF THE ICE ON THE AIRCRAFT: 'IT APPEARED TO BE APPROXIMATELY 1/8 INCH IN THICKNESS THROUGHOUT THE LEFT AND RIGHT WING SURFACES AND THE REAR EMPENNAGE SECTIONS . . .' ANOTHER ANG PILOT DESCRIBED THE WEATHER AT THE TIME OF THE ACCIDENT AS, VISIBILITY LESS THEN ONE MILE WITH 'FREEZING RAIN AND SLEET.' THE EXAMINATION OF THE AIRPLANE DID NOT DISCLOSE EVIDENCE OF MECHANICAL MALFUNCTION.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate inflight decision which resulted in ice accretion on the aircraft, degradation of aircraft performance, an aerodynamic stall, loss of control and inflight collision with the ground. Factors were icing conditions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC94FA052
- Event ID
- 20001206X00971
- Case number
- NYC94FA052
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1994-03-04.
- API snapshot SHA-256: eada8990b81289a0fcfcb7b35b1d788908b0f03bdef277be1916e0bbd8a2a22e; retrieved 2026-09-21T00:14:03.092Z.