NYC95FA030 · Cessna 402C
Island Airlines Cessna 402C · Accident: in flight collision with object on approach
From Nantucket Memorial Airport (ACK) to Taizhou Luqiao Airport (HYN)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC95FA030
- 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
- 1 · 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 402C
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 402
- 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
- N402BK
- Operator
- Island Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Nantucket Memorial Airport (ACK), Nantucket, MATo Taizhou Luqiao Airport (HYN)
- 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 initial 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 collision with object
- 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
- Wire, static
- 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
- Object › Wire, static
- Pilot in command › Proper glidepath, not obtained/maintained
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Hyannis, MA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE AIRPLANE WAS ON AN ILS RUNWAY 15 APPROACH AND COLLIDED IN-FLIGHT WITH STATIC WIRES, APPROXIMATELY 2 MILES NORTH OF THE RUNWAY. THE WIRES WERE LOCATED IN THE AIRPLANE'S FLIGHT PATH, AND IN A DIRECT LINE WITH THE ILS FINAL APPROACH COURSE. AT THE TIME OF THE ACCIDENT THE LOCAL CONTROL TOWER WAS CLOSED. THREE OTHER AIRCRAFT MADE THE APPROACH PRIOR TO N402BK, AND THE PILOTS OF THOSE AIRCRAFT ALL AGREED THAT AT ABOUT 500 TO 700 FEET MSL, ON THE FINAL APPROACH COURSE, THEY ENCOUNTERED DOWNDRAFTS AND TURBULENCE. ALL THE PILOTS AGREED, THE DOWNDRAFTS CAUSED THEIR AIRPLANES TO FALL BELOW THE GLIDE SLOPE, AND THAT IN ORDER TO REJOIN THE GLIDE SLOPE, THEY HAD TO INCREASE POWER OR CHANGE THE AIRPLANE'S PITCH ATTITUDE. THE OTIS AIR NATIONAL GAURD BASE 2155 WEATHER OBSERVATION WAS; INDEFINITE CEILING 100 SKY OBSCURED, VISIBILITY 3/4 MILES, LIGHT RAIN AND FOG, TEMPERATURE 59 DEGREES F, DEW POINT 58 DEGREES F, WIND 170 DEGREES, 14 KNOTS, GUST TO 19, ALTIMETER 29.96 INCHES HG.
Probable cause
the pilot's failure to maintain a proper glide path during an ILS approach, which resulted in a collision with power lines. Factors in this accident were; adverse weather conditions with turbulence, down drafts and fog.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC95FA030
- Event ID
- 20001206X02642
- Case number
- NYC95FA030
- 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 1994-11-19.
- API snapshot SHA-256: ecd4125f4bd53f84dc11776344ad3354076d795c9c93cbab6da965e6451bf5d9; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:56:12.400Z.