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NYC00FA006 · Raytheon Corporate Jets BE-200

5 Oct 1999 · Williamstown, MA, United States

Shorline Aviation Raytheon Corporate Jets BE-200 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water en route

From Harriman and West Airport (AQW) to Greenbrier Valley Airport (LWB)

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Event

NTSB case
NYC00FA006
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

Raytheon Corporate Jets BE-200

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
N208MS
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From Harriman and West Airport (AQW), North Adams, MATo Greenbrier Valley Airport (LWB), Lewisburg, WV
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
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
Destroyed

Cause areas

  • Pilot in command › Atc clearance, not complied with

Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Williamstown, MA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.

NTSB narrative

The pre-takeoff instrument flight rules clearance for the flight called for the airplane to climb and maintain 5,000 feet, and to expect flight level 220, 10 minutes after departure. The clearance was read back correctly by a member of the flight crew. Shortly after takeoff, a member of the flight crew asked air traffic control for a higher altitude, and then stated 'uh, you want us at twenty two hundred.' The approach controller transmitted 'should be at five thousand;' however, there were no further transmissions from the airplane. The airplane wreckage was located at an elevation of about 2,300 feet, approximately 4.8 miles west of the departure airport. The airplane impacted wooded up-sloping terrain. Several broken trees were observed, which led to the beginning of the debris path. The trees were broken at about the same height. A weather observation taken at an airport about 12 miles north-northwest of the accident site, about the time of the accident included: few Clouds at 300 feet and a ceiling of 1,700 feet overcast.

Probable cause

The pilot-in-command's failure comply with an air traffic control clearance which resulted in a collision with terrain. A factor in this accident was clouds.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record NYC00FA006
Event ID
20001212X20025
Case number
NYC00FA006
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: 1e9e01d0e9db271c76cf2f29cc23a018339f539f1761e7afc92f6e5fee0b8a70; retrieved 2026-09-20T21:43:46.192Z.