BFO93FA061 · Cessna A152
Royal Karina Air Service Cessna A152 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather on approach
From Lancaster Airport (LNS) to Sky Manor Airport (N40)
Event
- NTSB case
- BFO93FA061
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Cessna A152
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 152
- 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
- N761XA
- Operator
- Royal Karina Air Service
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Lancaster Airport (LNS), Lancaster, PATo Sky Manor Airport (N40), PITTSTOWN, 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
- 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
- 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(cfi) › Supervision, inadequate
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Revere, PA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE STUDENT PILOT WAS RETURNING AT NIGHT ON THE LAST LEG OF HER LONG SOLO CROSS COUNTRY. ACCORDING TO THE FAA, THE PILOT DEPARTED LANCASTER AIRPORT AT 1758 EST AND HAD RECEIVED A PREFLIGHT BRIEFING THAT INDICATED FLIGHT PRECAUTIONS FOR IFR CONDITIONS. THE INSTRUCTOR REPORTED THAT THE ORIGINAL TRIP PLANNED BY THE STUDENT WAS CANCELLED DUE TO IFR CONDITIONS ON THAT ROUTE. SHE CHANGED HER ROUTE AND AS INSTRUCTED, SHE CALLED HIM FROM LANCASTER AND REPORTED HER LOCATION. SHE ALSO ADVISED HIM THAT THE WEATHER WAS VFR FOR HER RETURN TRIP. THE INSTRUCTOR STATED THAT HE TOLD THE STUDENT THAT IF ANY UNCERTAINTY EXISTED ONCE SHE BECAME AIRBORNE, SHE SHOULD LAND. RADAR DATA OBTAINED FROM THE FAA SHOWED THE AIRPLANE AT 900 FEET MAKING SEVERAL TURNS. ACCORDING TO WITNESSES THE AIRPLANE WAS SEEN THROUGH THE FOG AND DRIZZLE CIRCLING THE AREA. THE AIRPLANE COLLIDED WITH TREES IN A HEAVILY WOODED AREA AND THEN BECAME INVERTED. EXAMINATION OF THE AIRPLANE DID NOT DISCLOSE EVIDENCE OF MECHANICAL MALFUNCTION.
Probable cause
THE CFI FAILED TO ADEQUATELY SUPERVISE THE OPERATION. RELATED FACTORS WERE DARK NIGHT, LOST/DISORIENTATION OF THE PILOT, AND HER LACK OF EXPERIENCE IN TYPE OF OPERATION (NIGHT FLYING).
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record BFO93FA061
- Event ID
- 20001211X11913
- Case number
- BFO93FA061
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1993-03-28.
- API snapshot SHA-256: eaa3c6c593041afa89992d833ddf79d018849abba1901d2b9edd43660598f4bd; retrieved 2026-09-21T00:39:15.349Z.