NYC90FA117 · Piper PA-28-181
Piper PA-28-181 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Elmira Corning Regional Airport (ELM) to Pine Valley Airport (19N)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's departure or destination. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC90FA117
- 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
Piper PA-28-181
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-28
- 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
- N8376N
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route Possible conflict
- From Elmira Corning Regional Airport (ELM), Elmira, NYTo Pine Valley Airport (19N), Camden, NJ
- 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 encounter with weather
- 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 › Aircraft control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Preflight briefing service, disregarded
- Pilot in command › Self-induced pressure
- Pilot in command › Spatial disorientation
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, performed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE NON-INSTRUMENT RATED PVT PILOT WAS FLYING FROM HAMILTON, CANADA, TO BERLIN, NJ AT NIGHT. HE STOPPED AT BUFFALO, NY AND RECEIVED A WEATHER BRIEFING WITH VNR (VFR FLIGHT NOT RECOMMENDED) DUE TO RAIN, LOW CLOUDS, AND FOG. HE DEPARTED VFR AND CONTACTED WILLIAMSPORT AFSS, RECEIVED AN EN ROUTE BRIEFING AND THEN MADE AN UNPLANNED STOP AT ELMIRA, NY. WHILE ON THE GROUND HE RECEIVED TWO ADDITIONAL BRIEFINGS, BOTH WITH VNR. HE AGAIN DEPARTED VFR AND CONTACTED THE NY ARTCC FOR VFR ADVISORIES. HE SAID HE WAS AT 3200 FT, HOWEVER NY CENTER SAID 4200 FEET WAS THE MINIMUM RADAR VECOTRING ALTITUDE. HE FINALLY CLIMBED TO 4000 FT AND DISAPPEARED FROM RADAR AFTER APPROXIMATELY 1 1/2 MINUTES. THE LAST FEW RADAR CONTACTS SHOWED A LEFT TURN APPROX TWICE STANDARD RATE. THE GROUND IMPACT SHOWED THE AIRPLANE IN A LEFT TURN AT IMPACT. WITNESSES ON THE GROUND REPORTED RAIN AND FOG. NO EVIDENCE OF A MECHANICAL FAILURE OR MALFUNCTION WAS FOUND.
Probable cause
AN INFLIGHT LOSS OF CONTROL DUE TO SPATIAL DISORIENTATION. CONTRIBUTING TO THE ACCIDENT WAS THE PILOT'S LACK OF AN INSTRUMENT RATING, AND HIS DECISION TO MAKE THE FLIGHT AFTER RECEIVING THREE SEPARATE BRIEFINGS WHERE HE WAS TOLD 'VFR FLIGHT NOT RECOMMENDED.'
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC90FA117
- Event ID
- 20001212X23258
- Case number
- NYC90FA117
- 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: 2ef31cd44187d45cba14e50313994862e7d98c2428c17b7432e5de42904e888b; retrieved 2026-09-21T02:38:47.750Z.