NYC00FA004 · Cessna 182R
Cessna 182R · Accident: in flight collision with object on approach
From Igor I Sikorsky Memorial Airport (BDR) to 3B9 · CHESTER, CT
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC00FA004
- 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 182R
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 182
- 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
- N121BG
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Igor I Sikorsky Memorial Airport (BDR), Bridgeport, CTTo 3B9 · CHESTER, CT
- 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
- In flight collision with object
- 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
- Tower (marked)
- 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 › IFR procedure, not followed
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Killingworth, CT, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
While executing a non-precision approach, the airplane impacted a tower located about 2.6 miles northwest of the airport. A witness, who recorded the condition of the tower lighting daily, stated that the illumination of the top light on the tower, on the day of the accident, could not be determined due to fog. Examination of the wreckage revealed that the airplanes heading indicator bug was found selected to 075 degrees. The number one navigational OMNI head OBS was selected to 055 degrees. The approach procedure flight track, as depicted on the approach chart, was 076 degrees. A plot was drawn from the IAF to the tower. The distance from the VOR to the tower was about 8.6 statute miles, on a course of about 050 degrees true.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure follow the published instrument approach procedure. A factor in the accident was the low cloud ceiling.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC00FA004
- Event ID
- 20001212X20024
- Case number
- NYC00FA004
- 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: 397a3ff1d90e240014a123a5e7dc30a53921aeabdeb27056daac4c97897660f0; retrieved 2026-09-20T21:43:56.923Z.