NYC90FA051 · Piper PA-32R-300
Air East Piper PA-32R-300 · Accident: in flight collision with object during initial climb
From Great Barrington, MA to Pittsfield Municipal Airport (PSF)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC90FA051
- 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
Piper PA-32R-300
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-32
- 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
- N38389
- Operator
- Air East
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Great Barrington, MATo Pittsfield Municipal Airport (PSF), PITTSFIELD,, MA
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Tree(s)
- 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 › Clearance, not maintained
Not plotted · Location withheld: coordinates are missing, conflicting, invalid, or have no accepted acquisition method. No substitute location has been invented.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT AND FIVE PASSENGERS FLEW TO THE GREAT BARRINGTON AIRPORT TO NIGHT SKI AT A NEARBY AREA. AFTER ARRIVAL, THEY LEARNED THAT THE SKI FACILITY WAS CLOSED. THEY DECIDED TO FLY TO PITTSFIELD, MA, WHERE SKI AREAS WERE OPEN. WHILE DEPARTING FROM RUNWAY 29, THE AIRCRAFT COLLIDED WITH THE TOP OF A 60 FT TREE, 493 FT FROM THE END OF THE RUNWAY. THE AIRCRAFT THEN WENT OUT OF CONTROL, HIT OTHER TREES AND CRASHED. NO PREIMPACT MECHANICAL PROBLEM WAS FOUND THAT WOULD HAVE RESULTED IN THE ACCIDENT. THE AIRCRAFT'S GROSS WEIGHT WAS ESTIMATED TO BE 3868 LBS; ITS CENTER OF GRAVITY WAS CALCULATED TO BE 95.71 INCHES. THE AIRCRAFT'S MAXIMUM CERTIFIED GROSS WEIGHT WAS 3500 LBS AND ITS MAXIMUM AFT CG LIMIT WAS 95 INCHES. THIS WAS THE PILOT'S FIRST FLIGHT TO THIS AIRPORT.
Probable cause
FAILURE OF THE PILOT TO MAINTAIN PROPER ALTITUDE AND CLEARANCE FROM TREES WHILE DEPARTING FROM THE AIRPORT. FACTORS RELATED TO THE ACCIDENT WERE: THE PILOT'S INADEQUATE PREFLIGHT PLANNING/PREPARATION, HIS ALLOWING THE AIRCRAFT WEIGHT AND BALANCE TO BE EXCEEDED, DARKNESS, AND THE PILOT'S LACK OF FAMILIARITY WITH THE AIRPORT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC90FA051
- Event ID
- 20001212X22477
- Case number
- NYC90FA051
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (5)
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1990-01-19.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 94f13d6755bbcae55d091d282a974e352bfe64c4bfe7089a03244b8d5bb140ea; retrieved 2026-09-21T03:01:29.191Z.
- Corrected after a review of the NTSB narrative, which states these values explicitly: departure. The narrative states the group flew "TO THE GREAT BARRINGTON AIRPORT" and, bound for Pittsfield, "WHILE DEPARTING FROM RUNWAY 29, THE AIRCRAFT COLLIDED WITH THE TOP OF A 60 FT TREE"; the departure was not recorded.