NYC97LA183 · Cessna 402C
Ocean Wings Cessna 402C · Accident: in flight encounter with weather on approach
From Cape Cod Gateway Airport (HYA) to Nantucket Memorial Airport (ACK)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC97LA183
- 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
- 0 · 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
- N6879Y
- Operator
- Ocean Wings
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Cape Cod Gateway Airport (HYA), Hyannis, MATo Nantucket Memorial Airport (ACK)
- 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 final 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 encounter with weather
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Go-around, delayed
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Nantucket, MA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
The pilot-in-command (PIC) and pilot/passenger (copilot) diverted to another airport prior to their destination because of low visibility at the destination airport. The visibility was low due to fog, but the pilots decided to continue to their original destination after they had deplaned their passengers. At the final destination, the PIC could not land from the first ILS approach due to poor visibility and attempted a second approach. He said that after the second approach, he had the runway environment in sight, but decided to go around because '... something didn't feel right.' The co-pilot said he got disoriented and confused, and called for a go-around. However, the airplane struck the ground immediately thereafter. Rescue workers reported difficulty finding the airplane due to poor visibility. They estimated the visibility at less than 25 feet. Weather reported at the time of the accident was: measured ceiling 100 feet obscured, 1/4 mile visibility with fog. The temperature and dew point were 65 degrees. Winds were from 180 degrees at 6 knots.
Probable cause
the pilot's delayed decision to perform a go-around (missed approach). Related factors were: darkness, low ceiling, fog, and disorientation of the flight crew, while making the approach in conditions of limited visibility.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC97LA183
- Event ID
- 20001208X08914
- Case number
- NYC97LA183
- 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: 3dec6b91a411abe5d2919546822bd3b982f4e8131b809cc0a3ccf6cfc739771a; retrieved 2026-09-22T18:36:12.421Z.