NYC97FA170 · Cessna 337B
Cessna 337B · Accident: loss of control in flight en route
From Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR) to Princeton Airport (39N)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC97FA170
- 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
Cessna 337B
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 337
- 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
- N2442S
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR), Newark, NJTo Princeton Airport (39N), Princeton, 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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 › Descent, uncontrolled
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Warren Township, NJ, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
The pilot took off from the Newark International Airport and departed a VFR corridor to the west. Air Traffic Control (ATC) records revealed initial services were provided by Newark Airport ground control and by the tower. Further ATC service from approach control was offered, but the pilot declined the service. At 1024, radar service was terminated, however, radar facilities continued to track the airplane. Radar data showed the airplane climbed to 1,800 feet mean sea level (MSL) and continued at 1,800 feet MSL for approximately 38 seconds in a westerly direction. The last radar plot at 1,800 feet was at 1028:26. At 1028:31, radar data indicated N2442S had descended to 1,100 feet MSL; indicating an 8,400 feet-per-minute rate of descent. No further radar plots were recorded. The airplane impacted wooded terrain behind a house in a residential area in a 60 degree nose down attitude. Witnesses stated the engines were running 'loud' and 'perfectly well'. Examination of the wreckage revealed no pre-impact anomalies.
Probable cause
the pilot's loss of control in flight for undetermined reasons and the subsequent collision with terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC97FA170
- Event ID
- 20001208X08716
- Case number
- NYC97FA170
- 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: e60de250473030a0548cc607b76c0500d326055bf41d40c8ade2d954776503c9; retrieved 2026-09-20T22:51:00.453Z.