NYC89FA105 · Aerospatiale TB-10
Aerospatiale TB-10 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water en route
From Westover Metropolitan Airport / Westover Air Reserve Base (CEF) to Albany International Airport (ALB)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC89FA105
- 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
- 4 · 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
Aerospatiale TB-10
- Aircraft type
- Aerospatiale TB-10
- 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
- N20NQ
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Westover Metropolitan Airport / Westover Air Reserve Base (CEF), WESTOVER AFB, MATo Albany International Airport (ALB), Albany, NY
- 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 · descent
- 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 Pittsfield, MA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
DRG VFR FLT AT NGT, PLT TRIED CTCG ALBANY APCH CTL (ALB), 40 MI FM DESTN. CTLR ANSWERED CALL & RPRTD HE WAS NOT RCVG TRANSPONDER (XPDR), BUT PLT DID NOT HEAR HIM AS HIS ACFT WAS TOO FAR AWAY. PLT WAS ADZD, VIA AN AIRLINER, TO CALL AGAIN AFTER PROCEEDING FURTHER INBND. ABT 13 MIN LATER, PLT ESTABLISHED CTC WITH ALB, APRX 27 MI SE IN VCNTY OF PITTSFIELD AT 2500' MSL. HE ASKED, 'MY ALT OF 2500, IS THAT OK?' CTLR THOUGHT PLT WAS REFERRING TO QUALITY OF XPDR READ-OUT OF 2500' & REPLIED 'AFFIRMATIVE.' CTLR THEN ASKED IF PLT WAS VFR; PLT SAID HE WAS. SOON THEREAFTER, CTC WITH ACFT WAS LOST. IT DSCNDED INTO RISING TRRN AT ELEV OF ABT 1800'. NO PREIMPACT MECH PRBLM WAS FND. DRG PREFLT WX BRIEFING, FSS PSNL DID NOTADZ PLT OF FLT PRCTN OF OBSCD MTNS. MVA IN AREA WAS 4000' MSL. ANOTHER PLT OPERG FM PITTSFIELD RPRTD BASES OF OVC WERE RAGGED AT 2500' TO 3000' MSL & HIGHER TRRN WAS OBSCD BY CLOUDS. RCC NOT NOTIFIED; SEARCH DELAYED; CTLR'S SUPVR NOTIFIED ARTCC PER PROC FOR IFR ACFT. ARTCC DID NOT NOTIFY RCC, SINCE ACFT WAS VFR; HOWEVER, CRASH WAS NOT SURVIVABLE.
Probable cause
FAILURE OF THE PILOT TO MAINTAIN PROPER ALTITUDE. FACTORS RELATED TO THE ACCIDENT WERE: INADEQUATE BRIEFING PROVIDED BY THE FLIGHT SERVICE STATION (FSS) SPECIALIST, DARK NIGHT, LOW CLOUDS, AND TERRAIN CONDITIONS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC89FA105
- Event ID
- 20001213X27981
- Case number
- NYC89FA105
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1989-03-26.
- API snapshot SHA-256: c278a108f7089c5461ac354b28b272b65471f33be04c99e5c1928296afa88658; retrieved 2026-09-21T03:22:07.710Z.