NYC99FA222 · Cessna 337C
Cessna 337C and Cessna 305C · Accident: midair collision en route
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC99FA222
- 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
Aircraft 1 · Cessna 337C
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 337
- 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
- N973FS
- Operator
- George F. Shelton · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From AQWTo 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
- En route · cruise
- 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
- Midair collision
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Aircraft 2 · Cessna 305C
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 305
- 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
- N3255P
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From AQWTo 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
- En route · climb to cruise
- 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
- Midair collision
- 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 › Procedures/directives, not followed
- Pilot of other aircraft › Procedures/directives, not followed
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of North Adams, MA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
Three airplanes were making fly-bys at an airshow. The pilots were briefed to prepare for multiple passes. The faster airplane, a Cessna 337 was assigned a minimum altitude of 500 feet AGL, while the two slower airplanes, a Piper J3C-65, followed by Cessna 305 were restricted from climbing above 200 feet AGL. After the Cessna 337 made one fly-by, the Piper and Cessna 305 flew by show-center. Passing show-center, the Piper remained below 200 feet AGL. However, the Cessna 305 initiated a climb as the Cessna 337 returned toward show-center for his second pass. Witnesses reported the airboss advised the pilot of the Cessna 337 that the Cessna 305 was climbing. The downward visibility over the nose of the Cessna 337 restricted the pilot from seeing the Cessna 305 until it appeared in front of him. At the time of the collision, the Cessna 337 was maneuvering to the right and descending. The Cessna 305 was in a wings level climb straight ahead.
Probable cause
the failure of the pilot of the Cessna 305 to follow the instructions issued, and maintain a low altitude. A factor was the delay in evasive action by the pilot of the Cessna 337 after he was first advised that the Cessna 305 was climbing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC99FA222
- Event ID
- 20001212X19851
- Case number
- NYC99FA222
- 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: eb5fd7be8d02938461e4161f1f54712d366624c67e93de450e8d3f014873fb0f; retrieved 2026-09-20T21:48:28.374Z.