NYC87FA251 · Cessna 152
Cessna 152 · Accident: in flight collision with object on approach
From Auburn Lewiston Municipal Airport (LEW) to Minute Man Air Field (6B6)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC87FA251
- 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
Cessna 152
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 152
- 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
- N25223
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Auburn Lewiston Municipal Airport (LEW), Lewiston, METo Minute Man Air Field (6B6), Stow, MA
- 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
- In flight collision with object
- 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
- Tree(s); Wire, transmission
- 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 › Descent, premature
- Pilot in command › IFR procedure, improper
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Boxborough, MA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE IFR FLIGHT FROM AUBURN-LEWISTON, MAINE TO THE MANCHESTER, NEW HAMPSHIRE VORTAC FACILITY WAS WITHOUT INCIDENT. BOSTON CENTER CLEARED THE FLIGHT FOR THE VOR/DME INSTRUMENT APPROACH PROCEDURE TO RUNWAY 21 AT THE UNCONTROLLED STOW/MINUTE MAN AIRPORT, STOW, MASSACHUSETTS. WITNESSES RESIDING BETWEEN EGORE, THE FINAL APPROACH FIX, AND THE AIRPORT, HEARD THE ENGINE REV UP TO A HIGH POWER SETTING MOMENTS BEFORE THE AIRCRAFT CRASHED THROUGH TREES AND POWERLINES. THEREAFTER, THE AIRCRAFT NOSED INTO AN ASPHALT ROADWAY AND CAME TO REST IN A BALL OF FIRE AT A POINT ABOUT 2.75 MILES SHORT OF THE RUNWAY THRESHOLD.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC87FA251
- Event ID
- 20001213X32181
- Case number
- NYC87FA251
- 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: 7687dbeba2ec2a0d1525a7371a13553d8a584d437652522319982596bd810feb; retrieved 2026-09-21T03:58:58.740Z.