NYC87FA127 · Piper PA-28-180
Piper PA-28-180 · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Yeager Airport (CRW) to York Airport (THV)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC87FA127
- 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
- 4 · 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
- N7987W
- Operator
- Bruce E.Johnson
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Yeager Airport (CRW), Charleston, WVTo York Airport (THV), York, PA
- 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 · IFR final 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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, improper
- Pilot in command › Missed approach, not performed
- Pilot in command › Spatial disorientation
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of York, PA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE PIPER PA-28-180 WAS MAKING AN NDB INSTRUMENT APPROACH UNDER INSTRUMENT METEOROLOGICAL CONDITIONS AT NIGHT. THE PILOT MANUEVERED THE AIRCRAFT OVER THE AIRPORT SEVERAL TIMES IN AN APPARENT ATTEMPT TO ACQUIRE VISUAL CONTACT WITH THE RUNWAY, LOST CONTROL OF THE AIRCRAFT AND IMPACTED LEVEL TERRAIN NEXT TO THE RUNWAY. THE PILOT FAILED TO FOLLOW THE INSTRUMENT APPROACH PROCEDURE. A FEW MINUTES AFTER THE NOISE OF THE AIRCRAFT WAS NO LONGER HEARD, THE WRECKAGE WAS FOUND AT THE EDGE OF THE AIRPORT. THE PILOT AND THREE PASSENGERS WERE FATALLY INJURED. THE AIRCRAFT WAS DESTROYED BY A HIGH SPEED IMPACT. THE AIRCRAFT WAS BASED AT THE AIRPORT WHERE THE ACCIDENT OCCURRED.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC87FA127
- Event ID
- 20001213X30802
- Case number
- NYC87FA127
- 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 1987-04-18.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 523b26006ee5ee0943158b2a32cbf479567799f53f468291844c347d82cf1cb3; retrieved 2026-09-21T04:10:02.858Z.