NYC87FA188 · Piper PA-32R-300
Piper PA-32R-300 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water en route
From Quakertown Airport (UKT) to Saratoga County Airport (5B2)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC87FA188
- 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
- 2 · 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
- Charter & commuter
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Unknown
Piper PA-32R-300
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-32
- 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
- N7146C
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Quakertown Airport (UKT), Quakertown, PATo Saratoga County Airport (5B2), Saratoga Springs, 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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 › In-flight planning/decision, improper
- Pilot in command › Visual lookout, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
WHILE ON A VFR AIR TAXI CARGO FLIGHT, THE AIRCRAFT COLLIDED WITH TREES ON THE EAST SIDE OF HIGH PEAK MOUNTAIN, ELEVATION 3,655 FEET. THE ACCIDENT SITE ELEVATION WAS 3080 FEET. A WITNESS SAID IT WAS HEAVY OVERCAST, NOT RAINING AND THE CLOUDS WERE NOT BELOW THE MOUNTAIN TOPS. THE INVESTIGATION REVEALED THAT THE MOON WAS BELOW THE HORIZON, SUNSET AND CIVIL TWILIGHT WERE AT 2038 AND 2113, RESPECTIVELY, AND CLOUDS 3000 TO 5000 FEET SCATTERED, 10,000 TO 12,000 FEET SCATTERED, LAYERS OCCASIONALLY BROKEN. EXAM OF THE WRECKAGE DID NOT DISCLOSE ANY PRE-EXISTING MALFUNCTIONS OR FAILURES.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC87FA188
- Event ID
- 20001213X31297
- Case number
- NYC87FA188
- 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 1987-06-26.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 52343eea7272b412106ce3240f27d25058f777fe226e218c20aed728193cecef; retrieved 2026-09-18T14:14:05.621Z.