BFO95LA066 · Drake MONI
Drake MONI · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Pittsfield Municipal Airport (PSF) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- BFO95LA066
- 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Drake MONI
- Aircraft type
- Drake MONI
- 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
- N787DD
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Pittsfield Municipal Airport (PSF), MATo 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 · VFR pattern final
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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
- Tree(s)
- 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 › Aircraft control, not maintained
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Pittsfield, MA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
WITNESSES REPORTED THAT THE PILOT WAS ACCUMULATING TIME ON A NEWLY INSTALLED ENGINE, AND THAT HE WAS PRACTICING ENGINE-OUT APPROACHES AND LANDINGS. DURING ONE ENGINE-OUT APPROACH, THE AIRPLANE VEERED TO THE RIGHT, PITCHED NOSE DOWN, AND IMPACTED TREES. THE WITNESSES REPORTED THAT JUST PRIOR TO THE IMPACT THEY HEARD THE ENGINE RESTART. RECORDS INDICATED THAT THE AIRPLANE WAS BUILT OVER A YEAR BEFORE THE ACCIDENT, AND THERE WAS NO RECORD OF AN AIRWORTHINESS/ANNUAL INSPECTION. THE ENGINE HAD ABOUT 5 HOURS OF FLIGHT TIME. THERE WAS NO EVIDENCE OF A PREIMPACT MECHANICAL MALFUNCTION. THE WOODEN PROPELLER WAS SHATTERED. TOXICOLOGICAL TESTS SHOWED THAT THE PILOT'S BLOOD CONTAINED 0.081 MCG/ML PROPOXYPHENE(DARVON) AND 0.428 MCG/ML NORPROPOXYPHENE(METABOLITE OF PROPOXYPHENE). THIS DRUG IS NOT APPROVED FOR USE WHILE FLYING.
Probable cause
the pilot's failure to maintain/regain control of the aircraft during the simulated engine-out procedure while on approach to landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record BFO95LA066
- Event ID
- 20001207X03637
- Case number
- BFO95LA066
- 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: investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: b86bbf273953671039b4f56bb6c29fd62146baf99416f7660650ea7a059b11e2; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:44:12.108Z.