NYC90FA041 · Cessna 172N
Cessna 172N · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Teterboro Airport (TEB) to Norfolk International Airport (ORF)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC90FA041
- 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
Cessna 172N
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 172
- 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
- N3353E
- Operator
- Darryl Nitke
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Teterboro Airport (TEB), TETERBORO, NJTo Norfolk International Airport (ORF), Norfolk, VA
- 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 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); Tree(s)
- 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 › Hazardous weather advisory, disregarded
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, continued
Not plotted · Location withheld: coordinates are missing, conflicting, invalid, or have no accepted acquisition method. No substitute location has been invented.
NTSB narrative
WHILE IN CRUISE FLIGHT AT 1000 FEET AND FLYING OVER A DARK WOODED AREA, THE PILOT WAS ATTEMPTING TO AVOID SOME REPORTED SNOW SHOWERS. THE PILOT HAD REQUESTED RADAR ADVISORIES THROUGH THE ARSA, BUT WAS NEVER PICKED UP ON RADAR. A WITNESS HEARD THE AIRPLANE FLY VERY LOW OVER HIS HOME, LOCATED ABOUT ONE MILE FROM THE CRASH SITE. THE AIRPLANE HIT TREES AND THEN COLLIDED WITH THE GROUND. THE PILOT HAD APPROXIMATELY 80 HOURS OF TOTAL FLYING TIME AND NEGLIGIBLE NIGHT FLIGHT TIME. THE PILOT WAS BRIEFED ABOUT SNOW AND ICING CONDITION FOR HIS INTENDED ROUTE OF FLIGHT. THE AIRPLANE WAS FOUND ON 12/27/89 IN A WOODED AREA NORTH OF ATLANTIC CITY, NJ.
Probable cause
THE FAILURE OF THE PILOT TO PROPERLY PRE-FLIGHT PLAN AND EXECUTE THE VFR FLIGHT. FACTOR'S RELATED TO THE ACCIDENT WERE: THE PILOT'S INEXPERIENCE; NO VISUAL CUES (LIGHTS) DUE TO DARK NIGHT CONDITIONS; THE PILOT'S DISREGARD OF THE WEATHER BRIEFING.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC90FA041
- Event ID
- 20001213X30006
- Case number
- NYC90FA041
- 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 1989-12-26.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 58f0b7958a949be54c848c21f5efde14b68ffabe9d27e3ad449bd0b8b552b50d; retrieved 2026-09-21T03:03:13.031Z.