NYC87FA215 · Cessna 182Q
Cessna 182Q · Accident: partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Aeroflex-Andover Airport (12N) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC87FA215
- 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Cessna 182Q
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 182
- 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
- N735DS
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Aeroflex-Andover Airport (12N), Andover, NJTo not recorded
- 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
- Partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical)
- 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
- Stall/spin
- 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 › Airspeed, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Impairment(alcohol)
- Pilot in command › Impairment(drugs)
- Pilot in command › Stall/spin, inadvertent
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Sparta, NJ, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE ACFT WAS OBSERVED TO FLY NEAR POWER LINES, THEN ROLL INVERTED, CRASH & BURN IN A WOODED AREA. THE 4 OCCUPANTS RCVD MULTIPLE IMPACT INJURIES WHICH WERE FATAL. THE ACFT WAS DESTROYED BY THE IMPACT & POST CRASH FIRE. SVRL WITNESSES RPRTD THE ENG POWER WAS INTERMITTENT, BUT NO REASON WAS FND FOR THE RPRTD POWER LOSS. ALTHOUGH SOME WITNESSES ON THE GROUND THOUGHT THE ACFT STRUCK THE POWER LINES, AN AIRBORNE WITNESS (WHO SAW THE ACDNT) SAID IT DID HIT THE LINES. NO PHYSICAL EVIDENCE OF A POWER LINE STRIKE WAS FOUND. TOXICOLOGY CHECKS OF THE PLT SHOWED MEASURABLE LVLS OF ALCOHOL & BUTALBITAL. CHECKS OF HIS LIVER TISSUE AT 2 LABS SHOWED APRX 0.07% ALCOHOL, ALTHOUGH A 3RD LAB ONLY DETECTED ALCOHOL (0.05%) IN KIDNEY TISSUE. THE PLT'S WIFE SAID HE HAD USED FIORINAL, A PRESCRIPTION DRUG FOR HEADACHES. BUTALBITAL IS AN ACTIVE INGREDIENT OF FIORINAL & IS A BARBITURATE WITH SIDE EFFECTS OF DROWSINESS & LOSS OF ALERTNESS. ALSO, THE EFFECTS OF BUTALBITAL ARE ADDITIVE WITH THOSE OF ALCOHOL. ON 10/28/85 (DATE OF MED CERT), THE PLT RPRTD HE HAD 400 HRS OF FLT TIME.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC87FA215
- Event ID
- 20001213X31898
- Case number
- NYC87FA215
- 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: ed15ce9f6981085f2c6ce373fc963552f74d40eb2c971d5a8958bd29b9a21223; retrieved 2026-09-21T04:02:56.762Z.