NYC92FA026 · Piper L-3
Piper L-3 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water while maneuvering
From Norwood Memorial Airport (OWD) to Norwood Memorial Airport (OWD)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC92FA026
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Piper L-3
- Aircraft type
- Piper L-3
- 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
- N6AN
- Operator
- Robert H. Russell · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Norwood Memorial Airport (OWD), Norwood, MATo Norwood Memorial Airport (OWD)
- 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
- Maneuvering
- 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
- 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
- Visual flight rules (VFR) flight into instrument meteorological conditions (IMC)
- 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 › Proper altitude, not maintained
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, attempted
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Plymouth, MA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT HAD A HISTORY OF FLYING AT LOW ALTITUDE AND IN WEATHER CONDITIONS EVEN THOUGH HE WAS NOT AN INSTRUMENT RATED PILOT. A WITNESS SAW THE AIRPLANE FLYING OVER HIS BOAT AT AN ALTITUDE OF 50 FEET, INTO A FOG BANK. THE AIRPLANE HAD LIMITED FLIGHT INSTRUMENTS.
Probable cause
THE IMPROPER DECISION BY THE NON-INSTRUMENT-RATED PILOT TO ATTEMPT VFR FLIGHT IN INSTRUMENT METEOROLOGICAL CONDITIONS, AT A LOW ALTITUDE, WHICH RESULTED IN A COLLISION WITH THE WATER. FACTORS RELATED TO THE ACCIDENT WERE: THE OVERCONFIDENCE OF THE PILOT IN HIS ABILITY AND AN AIRPLANE WITHOUT PROPER INSTRUMENTATION.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC92FA026
- Event ID
- 20001212X18507
- Case number
- NYC92FA026
- 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: ffce2feda83c5ed0f05ffadedeee9b5e14abab1efc38eb2c8e343465a8505fa8; retrieved 2026-09-21T01:29:50.795Z.