NYC89FA121 · Beech B19
Maine Instrument Flight School Beech B19 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water on approach
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC89FA121
- 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Beech B19
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 19
- 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
- N2231L
- Operator
- Maine Instrument Flight School
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- 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 · VFR pattern final
- 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 Augusta, ME, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
SHORTLY AFTER TAKING OFF, THE AIRCRAFT CRASHED INTO A DIRT BLUFF, 197 FT SHORT OF RUNWAY 8 AND 22 FT BELOW THE LEVEL OF THE RUNWAY. WITNESSES WHO OBSERVED THE CRASH SAID THE AIRCRAFT DID NOT DEVIATE OR ROCK WINGS PRIOR TO IMPACT. THERE WAS NO EVIDENCE OF PRE-EXISTING FAILURE OR MALFUNCTION WITH EITHER THE ENGINE OR AIRFRAME. THE PROPELLER HAD DEEP LEADING EDGE MARKS AND CHORD WISE STRIATIONS. THERE WAS NO EVIDENCE OF SEAT BELT USAGE BY THE PILOT, WHO WAS THROWN CLEAR OF THE WRECKAGE. THE PILOT WAS AN INVESTMENT BANKER, WHO HAD JUST BEEN PLACED ON LEAVE WITH PAY BY HIS EMPLOYER, WHILE HIS FINANCIAL TRANSACTIONS WERE BEING CHECKED.
Probable cause
FAILURE OF THE PILOT TO MAINTAIN THE PROPER ALTITUDE DURING THE APPROACH. A FACTOR RELATED TO THE ACCIDENT WAS: THE PILOT'S PSYCHOLOGICAL CONDITION.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC89FA121
- Event ID
- 20001213X28178
- Case number
- NYC89FA121
- 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: 1eebaf70ffb7c71e464eb19f6c501d0704aa350ec72efc712829bf47d332ef93; retrieved 2026-09-21T03:20:34.626Z.