NYC90FA135 · Piper PA-28-161
Piper PA-28-161 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water while maneuvering
From Beverly Regional Airport (BVY) to Greenville Municipal Airport (3B1)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC90FA135
- 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
Piper PA-28-161
- 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
- N44897
- Operator
- John P. Budzyna · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Beverly Regional Airport (BVY), Beverly, MATo Greenville Municipal Airport (3B1), Greenville, ME
- 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
- Maneuvering
- 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 › Proper altitude, not maintained
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Greenville, ME, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT RECEIVED RADAR VECTORS TOWARD THE AIRPORT, BUT WAS UNABLE TO SEE THE RUNWAY LIGHTS, THOUGH HE TRIED ACTIVATING THEM WITH HIS MIKE SWITCH. HE MADE SEVERAL ORBITING TURNS ABOUT 3 TO 8 MILES SOUTH OF THE AIRPORT. A WITNESS SAID THE AIRPORT WAS SHROUDED IN HEAVY GROUND FOG AND THAT THE VISIBILITY WAS POOR AT THE AIRPORT ABOUT 2 HRS PRIOR TO THE ACCIDENT. THE PILOT WAS NOT INSTRUMENT QUALIFIED, BUT HE HAD ABOUT 66 HRS OF NIGHT FLYING EXPERIENCE. THE LAST RADAR RETURN SHOWED THE AIRPLANE AT ABOUT 1600 FT MSL, FLYING IN AN EASTERLY DIRECTION ABOUT 4 MI SOUTH OF THE AIRPORT. ON 6/24/90, THE WRECKAGE WAS FOUND ABOUT 7 MI SOUTH-SOUTHEAST OF THE AIRPORT. IT HAD COLLIDED WITH A 1600 FT MOUNTAIN AT AN ELEVATION OF ABOUT 1460 FT.
Probable cause
FAILURE OF THE PILOT TO MAINTAIN THE PROPER ALTITUDE, WHILE SEARCHING FOR THE DESTINATION AIRPORT AT NIGHT. FACTORS RELATED TO THE ACCIDENT WERE: DARKNESS, FOG OBSCURING THE DESTINATION AIRPORT LIGHTS, MOUNTAINOUS TERRAIN, AND THE LACK OF VISUAL PERCEPTION AT NIGHT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC90FA135
- Event ID
- 20001212X23516
- Case number
- NYC90FA135
- 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: e32ee8de72c2beb6e0c67ad20d075777621511f4d8c8b4f1126f6ed1e9be8f37; retrieved 2026-09-21T02:33:27.998Z.