NYC96FA002 · Cessna 172N
Cessna 172N · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water on approach
From Chautauqua County-Dunkirk Airport (DKK) to Elmira Corning Regional Airport (ELM)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC96FA002
- 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 172N
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 172
- 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
- N9461E
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Chautauqua County-Dunkirk Airport (DKK), Dunkirk, NYTo Elmira Corning Regional Airport (ELM), Elmira, NY
- 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 terrain/water
- 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 › IFR procedure, improper
- Pilot in command › Proper altitude, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During arrival at night, the pilot contacted approach control (located in the control tower) and received vectors for an ILS runway 6 approach. During the first approach, the radar controller observed that the airplane drifted left of course and descended below the glideslope. This resulted in a low-altitude aural alarm, and the radar controller issued a low-altitude alert. The pilot made a missed approach and stated that he 'had a mismatch of the two compasses.' He was vectored for a second approach and was instructed to maintain 3,000 feet until established on the approach. The pilot was then transfered to tower frequency and was cleared to land. About 6 miles from the runway, the airplane again drifted left of course and another low-altitude alert was activated. The tower controller stated that he did not hear the low-altitude aural alarm, because he was focused on another airplane that was landing. A supervisor controller, situated on the other side of the control cab, heard the alarm and prompted the tower controller to take remedial action. However, the airplane crashed into an open field outside the outer marker in a wings-level attitude. Impact occurred at an elevation of 1,500 feet. The ILS glideslope crossing altitude at the outer marker was 2,800 feet. The extent of a 'mismatch of the two compasses' was not verified; no preimpact mechanical malfunction of the airplane was found. The pilot had flown nine instrument approaches since receiving an instrument competency check on 4/27/95 and had logged 15.7 hours of night flight time.
Probable cause
The pilot's improper IFR procedure by failing to maintain proper altitude, while on the initial approach for an ILS. A factor relating to the accident was: failure of the tower controller to issue a safety advisory.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC96FA002
- Event ID
- 20001207X04763
- Case number
- NYC96FA002
- 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: fa2e0c2829bd6cabc8e13d39fc740e77bdb2fdc4f3af3e7e407a1d794b3c5d36; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:34:45.114Z.