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NYC98FA111 · Piper PA-28RT-201 PA-28RT-20

23 May 1998 · Lincoln, MA, United States

Piper PA-28RT-201 PA-28RT-20 · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach

From Mid Ohio Valley Regional Airport (PKB) to Laurence G Hanscom Field (BED)

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Event

NTSB case
NYC98FA111
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
Visual Meteorological Cond

Piper PA-28RT-201 PA-28RT-20

Aircraft type
Piper PA-28
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
N82824
Operator
Unknown
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From Mid Ohio Valley Regional Airport (PKB), Parkersburg, WVTo Laurence G Hanscom Field (BED)
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 downwind
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
Stall/spin
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 › Airspeed, not maintained

Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Lincoln, MA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.

NTSB narrative

The airplane crashed while turning downwind for landing on runway 29 after a 4.5 hour cross-country flight. The pilot was in contact with the tower, but no distress calls were recorded. A witness stated that she saw the airplane come from the west, and bank sharply to the right, at a 45 degree angle, just above the trees. 'It did not sound like there was any engine trouble.' The witness further stated that it looked like the plane 'was trying to nose up it did not look like a plane crashing.' Inspection of the accident site revealed the airplane impacted the ground in wooded area in a descent angle of 48 degrees. The wreckage was oriented on a 180 degree magnetic heading. Examination or the aircraft revealed no evidence of a mechanical malfunction.

Probable cause

The pilot's failure to maintain airspeed.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record NYC98FA111
Event ID
20001211X10171
Case number
NYC98FA111
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: 8cdcbe1d704d46a9ae0516bcdbce2e605be06c986083d5f98c6a682d899e74ca; retrieved 2026-09-20T22:34:46.330Z.