NYC87LA261 · Cessna 172P
Richmor Aviation Cessna 172P · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water on approach
From Saratoga County Airport (5B2) to Fitchburg Municipal Airport (FIT)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC87LA261
- 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
- 0 · 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 172P
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 172
- 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
- N99151
- Operator
- Richmor Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Saratoga County Airport (5B2), Saratoga Springs, NYTo Fitchburg Municipal Airport (FIT), Fitchburg, 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 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 › IFR procedure, not followed
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Fitchburg, MA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
DRG ARRIVAL, THE PLT WAS CLRD FOR AN NDB-A APCH TO FITCHBURG MUNI ARPT. THE NDB WAS LOCATED ON THE ARPT & THE ARPT ELEV WAS 350'. THE MIN DSCNT ALT (MDA) WAS 1140' MSL. THE APCH PROCEDURE WAS TO GO OUTBND FM THE NDB ON A 137 DEG BEARING, MAKE A PROCEDURE TURN, THEN TRACK INBND ON A FINAL APCH COURSE OF 317 DEG. THE MISSED APCH PROCEDURE WAS TO MAKE A CLIMBING RIGHT TURN TO 2500', DIRECT TO THE NDB, THEN HOLD. THE PLT BEGAN THE APCH & THOUGHT HE HAD PROCEEDED TO THE MISSED APCH POINT OVER THE ARPT WHEN THE ACDNT OCCURRED. HOWEVER, THE ACFT CRASHED IN THE SIDE OF A TREE COVERED HILL, APRX 2-1/2 MI SOUTHWEST OF THE ARPT, WHILE IN LVL FLT AT APRX 1150' MSL.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC87LA261
- Event ID
- 20001213X32199
- Case number
- NYC87LA261
- 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 1987-09-20.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 232c2760010cd0f95db4618273f1ebc7b45562f3cfcce29aefafa3d914a1ea9e; retrieved 2026-09-21T16:19:34.920Z.