NYC87FA244 · Piper PA-28-235
Piper PA-28-235 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Cleveland, OH to Atlantic City, NJ
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC87FA244
- 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
- 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-28-235
- 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
- N8692W
- Operator
- John C. Gibson · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Cleveland, OHTo Atlantic City, NJ
- 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)
- 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
- Unqualified person › Design stress limits of aircraft, exceeded
- Unqualified person › VFR flight into imc, performed
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Altoona, PA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE AIRCRAFT DEPARTED CLEVELAND, OH AT APPROX 0915 HOURS ON AN UNAUTHORIZED FLT TO ATLANTIC CITY, NJ. THE PLT WAS NOT AUTHORIZED TO OPERATE THE AIRCRAFT OR CONDUCT THE FLT DUE TO HIS LICENSE HAVING BEEN REVOKED IN 1977 FOR REPEATEDLY VIOLATING FARS. NEAR ALTOONA, PA THE PILOT ENCOUNTERED IFR WX CONDITIONS. THE AIRCRAFT SUFFERED AN INFLIGHT CONTROL SURFACE SEPARATION. THE AIRCRAFT IMPACTED THE GROUND IN A NEAR VERTICAL ATTITUDE. THERE WAS NO POSTCRASH FIRE, THE PLT WAS NOT IN CONTACT WITH ANY ATC FACILITY, AND THERE IS NO RECORD OF ANY WX BRIEFING OBTAINED BY THE PLT. THE PLT'S FLT TIMES WERE NOT REPORTED OR AVAILABLE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC87FA244
- Event ID
- 20001213X32178
- Case number
- NYC87FA244
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (5)
- 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: f4b6de16a557ef29ecdbae530c5f2e6229084ce4a37ba4e751554c4be7c4959e; retrieved 2026-09-21T03:59:38.411Z.
- Corrected after a review of the NTSB narrative, which states these values explicitly: destination. The narrative states the aircraft "DEPARTED CLEVELAND, OH AT APPROX 0915 HOURS ON AN UNAUTHORIZED FLT TO ATLANTIC CITY, NJ" and crashed near Altoona, PA; Altoona is the crash site, not the destination.