BFO90FA076 · Piper PA-601P
National Jet Piper PA-601P · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water on approach
From Williamsburg Jamestown Airport (JGG) to CBE · Cumberland, MD
Event
- NTSB case
- BFO90FA076
- 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-601P
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-601
- 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
- N8249J
- Operator
- National Jet
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Williamsburg Jamestown Airport (JGG), Williamsburg, VATo CBE · Cumberland, MD
- 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 · circling (IFR)
- 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 › IFR procedure, improper
- Pilot in command › Proper altitude, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT WAS CLEARED FOR AN APPROACH TO THE AIRPORT. HE RECEIVED AIRPORT ADVISORIES FROM THE AIRPORT UNICOM OPERATOR & ASKED THAT THE RUNWAY LIGHTS BE TURNED UP. SOON AFTERWARDS, THE AIRPLANE WAS SEEN APPROACHING RUNWAY 23, WHICH WAS SERVED BY A LOCALIZER APPROACH. A WITNESS AT THE AIRPORT SAID HE SAW THE PLANE FLYING IN & OUT OF LOW HANGING CLOUDS. HE SAID THE AIRPLANE APPEARED TO BE AT LEVEL FLIGHT, ABOUT 400 TO 500 FEET AGL, THEN IT PASSED OVER THE AIRPORT & WENT IN A STEEP LEFT TURN. AFTER ABOUT 90 DEGREES OF TURN, THE AIRPLANE BEGAN A SHALLOW DESCENT. IT ROLLED OUT OF THE TURN BEFORE IT DESCENDED INTO THE GROUND ABOUT 1/4 MILE FROM THE APPROACH END OF RUNWAY 28. THE WITNESS SAID HE HEARD ENGINE SOUNDS THROUGHOUT THE DESCENT. AN EXAMINATION OF THE AIRPLANE DID NOT DISCLOSE EVIDENCE OF MECHANICAL MALFUNCTION. A POST-MORTEM EXAMINATION DID NOT REVEAL EVIDENCE OF IMPAIRMENT OR INCAPACITATION OF THE PILOT.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S IMPROPER IFR PROCEDURE BY NOT MAINTAINING SUFFICIENT ALTITUDE, WHILE CIRCLING TO LAND. FACTORS RELATED TO THE ACCIDENT WERE: THE LOW CEILING AND VISIBILITY CONDITIONS IN FOG.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record BFO90FA076
- Event ID
- 20001212X24200
- Case number
- BFO90FA076
- 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: 305c7cf69e18ee78e987f2e41d343ff07338183d1c1db7604bf508aab30e5521; retrieved 2026-09-21T02:11:28.223Z.