NYC94FA033 · Piper PA-28R-200
Piper PA-28R-200 · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Nantucket Memorial Airport (ACK) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC94FA033
- 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
- 4 · 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
Piper PA-28R-200
- 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
- N1488X
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Nantucket Memorial Airport (ACK), Nantucket, MATo not recorded
- 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
- 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 › Aircraft control, not maintained
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of New Haven, CT, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
ABOUT 30 MIN BEFORE THE ACCIDENT THE PILOT WAS ADVISED TO EXPECT AN ILS RWY 2, AND HE BEGAN RECEIVING VECTORS FOR THE FINAL APPROACH COURSE. AT 8 MIN BEFORE THE ACCIDENT, AND ABOUT 12 MI FROM THE INITIAL APPROACH FIX, THE PILOT WAS CLEARED FOR ILS RWY 2 TO CIRCLE TO RWY 20. AT ABOUT 2 MI FROM THE INITIAL APPROACH FIX THE PILOT WAS AGAIN CLEARED FOR THE ILS RWY 2 TO CIRCLE TO RWY 20. WHILE ON THE LOCALIZER THE PILOT ACKNOWLEDGED 'CIRCLING TO AH TO TWO ZERO.' THE AIRPLANE IMPACTED THE WATER 4.5 MI FROM THE AIRPORT. AN ATR-42 PILOT WHO HAD JUST LANDED STATED THAT CONDITIONS WERE 'ROUGH AND TURBULENT, ESPECIALLY AT TRAFFIC PATTERN ALTITUDE.' THE PILOT HAD OBTAINED HIS INSTRUMENT RATING 4-1/2 MOS BEFORE THE ACCIDENT.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S FAILURE TO MAINTAIN CONTROL OF THE AIRPLANE DURING A NIGHT APPROACH IN ADVERSE WEATHER CONDITIONS. FACTORS WHICH CONTRIBUTED TO THE ACCIDENT WERE THE WEATHER CONDITIONS AND DARK NIGHT. IN ADDITION, THE RADAR CONTROLLER'S VECTORING OF THE PILOT TO THE FINAL APPROACH COURSE WAS NOT IN ACCORDANCE WITH ATC PROCEDURES, THE RADAR CONROLLER ISSUED THE PILOT AN ALTITUDE WHICH WAS NOT IN ACCORDANCE WITH PROCEDURES, AND THE RADAR CONTROLLER FAILED TO PROVIDE RADAR MONITORING AS OUTLINED IN IN ATC HANDBOOK 7110.65H.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC94FA033
- Event ID
- 20001211X13902
- Case number
- NYC94FA033
- 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: f9ec3d7d628b81fa8ad7f8d917790dde3a09e1ecf2f02b069cbf0bdefd6657d5; retrieved 2026-09-21T00:17:51.044Z.