BFO94FA104 · Piper PA-23-250
Piper PA-23-250 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water en route
From AIY · Atlantic City, NJ to Essex County Airport (CDW)
Event
- NTSB case
- BFO94FA104
- 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
Piper PA-23-250
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-23
- 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
- N62701
- Operator
- Barbosa, Francisco · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From AIY · Atlantic City, NJTo Essex County Airport (CDW), Caldwell, NJ
- 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
- En route · cruise
- 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 collision with terrain/water
- 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
- Visual flight rules (VFR) flight into instrument meteorological conditions (IMC)
- 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 › Altitude, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Clearance, not maintained
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, attempted
- Pilot in command › Weather evaluation, disregarded
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Warren Grove, NJ, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE AIRPLANE DEPARTED THE AIRPORT AND WAS RECORDED ON RADAR FOR ABOUT NINE MINUTES. THE AIRPLANE THEN WENT INTO A RIGHT HAND TURN AND DESCENDED INTO THE TERRAIN. INSTRUMENT METEOROLOGICAL CONDITIONS PREVAILED. NO FLIGHT PLAN WAS FILED FOR THE CROSS COUNTRY FLIGHT. PRIOR TO DEPARTURE, THE PILOT RECEIVED NUMEROUS WEATHER BRIEFINGS FROM A FLIGHT SERVICE STATION. THE PILOT WAS TOLD '...VFR NOT RECOMMENDED.' POST ACCIDENT EXAMINATION OF THE AIRFRAME AND ENGINE REVEALED NO ANOMALIES. THE PASSENGER ABOARD THE AIRPLANE WAS THE OWNER AND HAD A PRIVATE PILOT CERTIFICATE. IT WAS REPORTED THAT THE OWNER WOULD USUALLY BE SEATED IN THE LEFT FRONT SEAT DURING FLIGHT. IT WAS NOT DETERMINED WHERE THE TWO PERSONS ON BOARD WERE SEATED AT THE TIME OF THE ACCIDENT.
Probable cause
THE PILOT DISREGARDED WEATHER EVALUATIONS, ATTEMPTED VFR FLIGHT INTO IMC AND FAILED TO MAINTAIN ALTITUDE AND CLEARANCE FROM THE TERRAIN.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record BFO94FA104
- Event ID
- 20001206X01447
- Case number
- BFO94FA104
- 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 1994-06-18.
- API snapshot SHA-256: a0403d269813af2be0a02d6a66c53aae08f5a12b562e2f1389b18b1415d619af; retrieved 2026-09-21T00:06:57.735Z.