NYC87FA250 · Piper PA-28-236
Piper PA-28-236 · Accident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From Cape Cod Gateway Airport (HYA) to Dutchess County Airport (POU)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC87FA250
- 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
- 1 · 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
Piper PA-28-236
- 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
- N2186B
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Cape Cod Gateway Airport (HYA), Hyannis, MATo Dutchess County Airport (POU), Poughkeepsie, 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 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- 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 › Design stress limits of aircraft, exceeded
- Pilot in command › Spatial disorientation
- Vacuum system › Failure, total
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Gaylordsville, CT, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT OF THE PIPER PA-28-236 WAS CRUISING AT 6000 FT AT NIGHT WHEN HE REPORTED A FAILURE OF HIS VACUUM PUMP FOLLOWED BY LOSS OF HIS ATTITUDE INDICATOR AND DIRECTIONAL GYRO. THE AIRCRAFT WAS OBSERVED TO MAKE A 360 DEGREE TURN ON THE RADAR SCOPE. THE AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER ISSUED 'NO GYRO' RADAR VECTORS. THE AIRCRAFT WAS CLEARED FROM 6000 FT TO 5000 FT IN PREPARATION FOR AN INSTRUMENT APPROACH. THE PILOT ACKNOWLEDGED THE DESCENT CLEARANCE AND THEN THE AIRCRAFT DISAPPEARED FROM THE RADAR SCOPE. IT WAS FOUND SCATTERED OVER 1/2 MILE WITH BOTH HORIZONTAL STABILIZER AND THE VERTICAL STABILIZER SEPARATED FROM THE AIRCRAFT. THE PILOTS LOG BOOK INDICATED HE MET THE RECENCY OF EXPERIENCE REQUIRED BY 14 CFR 61.57. FOG WAS REPORTED IN THE AREA AND THE CLOSEST RECORDED WEATHER INDICATED A 900 FT CEILING WITH FOG.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC87FA250
- Event ID
- 20001213X32180
- Case number
- NYC87FA250
- 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 1987-09-12.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 59239a402a3cdd5b665233ecfab587f73bd8651c67c4e1d77966108af8aaae8d; retrieved 2026-09-21T03:59:05.855Z.