NYC92FA062 · Cessna 150
Cessna 150 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water on approach
From Sussex, NJ to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC92FA062
- 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 150
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 150
- 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
- N6559F
- Operator
- Robert M. Lipani · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Sussex, NJTo 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
- 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 collision with terrain/water
- 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 › Aircraft control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Flight into known adverse weather, intentional
- Pilot in command › Impairment(drugs)
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
A WITNESS ON DUTY AT THE AIRPORT HEARD AN AIRPLANE CIRCLING VERY LOW OVERHEAD; IT MADE SEVERAL CIRCLES & THEN THE SOUND CEASED. SHE SAID THE WEATHER WAS 'VERY, VERY FOGGY', AND HEARD SEVERAL 'CLICKS' SIMILAR TO THE ACTIVATION OF AN AIRPLANE MICROPHONE. THE WRECKAGE WAS FOUND 2/19 APRX 300 FT NORTH OF THE APPROACH END OF RWY 33. THE PILOT'S 'MEMO' BOOK SHOWED THAT HE HAD PRACTICED LORAN APPROACHES TO THE AIRPORT. THE PILOT'S CFI ENDORSEMENT FOR SOLO FLIGHT HAD EXPIRED 3/19/90. THE AIRPLANE HAD BEEN EARLIER IMPOUNDED & CHAINED BY A FEDERAL MARSHALL AS A RESULT OF AN INCIDENT WHEREIN THE PILOT HAD LANDED AT THE AIRPORT TWICE DURING THE HOURS OF DARKNESS WITHOUT A CLEARANCE FROM THE CONTROL TOWER OR ANY OTHER RADIO COMMUNICATIONS. THE PILOT'S TOXICOLOGICAL TESTS DETECTED COCAINE IN THE URINE, AND BENZOYLECGONINE IN THE URINE (43.300 UG/ML), BLOOD (0.390 UG/ML), LIVER (0.394 UG/ML) AND KIDNEY (0.207 UG/ML).
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S IMPROPER DECISION TO FLY INTO KNOWN ADVERSE WEATHER CONDITIONS, HIS FAILURE TO MAINTAIN CONTROL OF THE AIRPLANE, AND HIS IMPAIRMENT OF JUDGEMENT DUE TO DRUGS. FACTORS WHICH CONTRIBUTED TO THE ACCIDENT WERE: THE DARK NIGHT, THE ADVERSE WEATHER CONDITIONS, THE PILOT'S LACK OF INSTRUMENT FLYING EXPERIENCE, AND HIS OVERCONFIDENCE IN HIS FLYING ABILITY.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC92FA062
- Event ID
- 20001211X14167
- Case number
- NYC92FA062
- 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: 272ad1fe1607273146e551b2312367cc5cae470f910d735fb2eb81a23e66773a; retrieved 2026-09-21T01:21:59.063Z.