NYC87FA006 · Piper PA-28-140
Piper PA-28-140 · Accident: on ground/water collision with terrain/water en route
From Northampton Airport (7B2) to Westfield-Barnes Regional Airport (BAF)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC87FA006
- 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
- 3 · 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-28-140
- 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
- N38688
- Operator
- Gerald C. White · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Northampton Airport (7B2), Northampton, MATo Westfield-Barnes Regional Airport (BAF), Westfield, 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
- 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
- On ground/water collision with terrain/water
- 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
- Pilot in command › Overconfidence in personal ability
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, continued
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Holyoke, MA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE AIRCRAFT WAS ATTEMPTING TO MAKE A SPECIAL VISUAL FLIGHT RULES ARRIVAL WHEN IT CRASHED INTO A ROCK FACE SLOPE 2 MILES EAST OF THE AIRPORT WHILE ON A EASTERLY HEADING. THE ACCIDENT OCCURRED OVER 1 HOUR AFTER SUNSET. THE PILOT DID NOT HAVE AN INSTRUMENT RATING. THE PILOT AND TWO PASSENGERS WERE FATALLY INJURED. A SPECIAL WEATHER OBSERVATION TAKEN RIGHT AFTER THE ACCIDENT SHOWED THE WEATHER TO BE: ESTIMATED 400 FT BROKEN, 1400 FT OVERCAST. VISIBILITY 1 1/2 MILES WITH LIGHT RAIN AND FOG.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC87FA006
- Event ID
- 20001213X35038
- Case number
- NYC87FA006
- 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: 6811d1a4daccbb3c76e7fd98bad3e5456151f44b6b79876a8d7ab0be5c7400cd; retrieved 2026-09-21T04:22:37.319Z.