NYC89FA166 · Piper PA-28-236
Piper PA-28-236 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather on approach
From Allegheny County Airport (AGC) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC89FA166
- 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
- 3 · 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-28-236
- 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
- N2829D
- Operator
- Roy Brotherhood/K. Mitzel
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Allegheny County Airport (AGC), ALLEGHENY CITYTo 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
- 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
- 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, not followed
- Pilot in command › Proper altitude, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT OF THE PIPER PA28-236 WAS CLEARED FOR AN NDB APPROACH AND RADAR SERVICE WAS TERMINATED. THE AIRCRAFT WAS SEEN BY SEVERAL WITNESSES FLYING VERY LOW, ABOUT 1 MILE WEST OF THE INBOUND PUBLISHED APPROACH COURSE ACCORDING TO WITNESSES THE WEATHER CONDITIONS AT THE TIME OF THE ACCIDENT WERE POOR WITH LOW VISIBILITY, DUE TO FOG AND DRIZZLE. THE AIRPORT IS EQUIPPED WITH RUNWAY STROBE LIGHTS, BUT THERE WERE NO WITNESSES THAT COULD REMEMBER IF THEY WERE ON OR OFF AT THE TIME OF THE ACCIDENT. WHEN LAST SEEN THE AIRCRAFT WAS FLYING LOW PERPENDICULAR (EAST) TO THE INBOUND COURSE, IT THEN TURNED LEFT, FLYING AWAY FROM THE AIRPORT.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S FAILURE TO FLY THE PUBLISHED APPROACH PROCEDURE, WHICH RESULTED IN CONTROLLED FLIGHT INTO THE TERRAIN.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC89FA166
- Event ID
- 20001213X28946
- Case number
- NYC89FA166
- 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 1989-07-17.
- API snapshot SHA-256: a2e071dc065a6607eca09fdaf8bdda152650dcc7896c8a4f76606750658d4964; retrieved 2026-09-21T03:13:59.676Z.