NYC89LA207 · Piper PA-28-180
Piper PA-28-180 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Laconia Municipal Airport (LCI) to Plum Island Airport (2B2)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC89LA207
- 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
- 0 · 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-28-180
- 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
- N9334J
- Operator
- A G. Allen & R. Hanlon
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Laconia Municipal Airport (LCI), Laconia, NHTo Plum Island Airport (2B2), Newburyport, MA
- 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 · climb to cruise
- 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
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Visual flight rules (VFR) flight into instrument meteorological conditions (IMC)
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Remedial action, inadequate
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, continued
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Sanbornton, NH, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
AFTER THE PLT OF PIPER PA-28, N9334J, TOOK OFF AT NGT BEHIND CESSNA, N65595, HE AND THE OTR PLT ENCTRD MARGINAL WX CONDS. A PSGR OF N9334J RPRTD THE 2 ACFT ENCTRD LOW CLDS & TURBC. HE SAID THE 2 ACFT CONVERGED TO W/I 100' OF EACH OTHER & THE PA-28 PLT TOOK ACTION TO MAINT SEPN FM THE CESSNA. THE PA-28 PLT RPRTD THAT AFTER ENCTRG ADVERSE WX, HE ELECTED TO RTRN TO THE ARPT; HOWEVER, HIS ACFT ENCTRD SVR TURBC AND WINDSHEAR THAT RESULTED IN A SUDDEN LOSS OF ALT. HE SAID HE LEVELED THE WINGS & APPLIED FULL PWR, BUT THE PSGR PANICKED & PULLED BACK ON THE YOKE, WHICH AGGRAVATED THE SITUATION. THE PSGR SAID THAT HE GRABBED & PULLED BACK ON THE YOKE, ONLY WHEN A NOSE DOWN COLLISION WITH TERRAIN WAS IMMINENT. SUBSEQUENTLY, THE ACFT IMPACTED IN A HAYFIELD & SLID ON ITS BELLY TO A STOP. A WITNESS RPRTD LOW CLDS, FOG AND RAIN. THE WIND WAS RPRTD TO BE GSTG TO 30 KTS.
Probable cause
VFR FLIGHT INTO INSTRUMENT METEOROLOGICAL CONDITIONS (IMC) BY THE PILOT, AND HIS INADEQUATE REMEDIAL ACTION TO CORRECT THE SITUATION. THE ADVERSE WEATHER CONDITIONS AND DARKNESS WERE RELATED FACTORS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC89LA207
- Event ID
- 20001213X29475
- Case number
- NYC89LA207
- 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 1989-09-02.
- API snapshot SHA-256: fd86d739bf6afb499bdc9067e6a3cccca746f2112aa737ce6c2adb11121a9d74; retrieved 2026-09-22T00:02:59.807Z.