NYC90FA039 · Piper PA-31-350
Aero Venture Piper PA-31-350 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water en route
From Floyd Bennett Memorial Airport (GFL) to Orange County Airport (MGJ)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC90FA039
- 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
- 6 · 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-31-350
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-31
- 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
- N45CH
- Operator
- Aero-Venture
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Floyd Bennett Memorial Airport (GFL), Glens Falls, NYTo Orange County Airport (MGJ), Montgomery, 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 · 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 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 › Flight into known adverse weather, performed
- Pilot in command › Proper altitude, not selected
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
DURING A PRE-FLIGHT WEATHER BRIEFING, THE INSTRUMENT RATED PILOT WAS TOLD BY THE AFSS SPECIALIST THAT MARGINAL VFR AND IFR CONDIITONS WOULD PREVAIL ALONG THE ROUTE OF FLIGHT. THE PILOT DID NOT FILE A FLIGHT PLAN. THE AIRPLANE WAS LAST DEPICTED ON RADAR AT 2500 FEET MSL AND HEADING TOWARDS HIGH TERRAIN. A NY STATE TROOPER LEAVING HIS OFFICE ABOUT THE TIME THE ACCIDENT OCCURRED STATED SNOW WAS FALLING VERY HARD AND VISIBILITY WAS LOW. THE STATE TROOPER'S OFFICE WAS ABOUT 5 MILES FROM THE CRASH SITE. THE AIRPLANE HIT A 3400 FOOT MOUNTAIN AT AN ELEVATION OF 2500 FEET. THE AIRPLANE WAS MISSING 4 DAYS AND WAS FOUND BY THE CREW OF A NY STATE POLICE HELICOPTER.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S DECISION TO FLY INTO THE KNOWN ADVERSE WEATHER AND HIS FAILURE TO SELECT AN ALTITUDE THAT WOULD PROVIDE TERRAIN CLEARANCE. FACTORS WERE: THE ADVERSE WEATHER AND THE PILOT'S DISREGARD FOR THE FORECASTED CONDITIONS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC90FA039
- Event ID
- 20001213X30004
- Case number
- NYC90FA039
- 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: ec8241373406b9efe3e511e29bf215475a70c5e6e3961fbbf60eed8a7e47301e; retrieved 2026-09-21T03:03:38.427Z.