NYC87FA038 · Piper PA-28-161
Piper PA-28-161 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water on approach
From MCI · Muncie, IN to Williamsport Regional Airport (IPT)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC87FA038
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Piper PA-28-161
- 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
- N8130A
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From MCI · Muncie, INTo Williamsport Regional Airport (IPT), Williamsport, PA
- 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 initial 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, improper
- Pilot in command › Proper altitude, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
DRG ARRIVAL, THE ACFT WAS VECTORED TO INTERCEPT THE ILS RWY 27 LOCALIZER (LOC) BFR REACHING THE MUNCI INITIAL APCH FIX (IAF), WHICH WAS 21.5 MI FM THE RWY. THE ATC CONTROLLER (CTLR) TOLD THE PLT TO MAINT 4000' UNTIL ON THE LOC, THEN CLRD HIM FOR THE APCH. FROM THE IAF, THE MIN ALT ON THE APCH WAS 3700' UNTIL INTERCEPTING THE ILS GLIDE SLOPE (GS) AT THE PICTURE ROCKS NDB (FAF). THE NDB WAS 9.4 MI FROM THE ARPT; THE OUTER MARKER (OM) WAS 4.8 MI FROM THE RWY. AS THE PLT CONTD, HE RPRTD THAT HIS INSTRUMENTS SHOWED HE WAS ON THE GS AT 2700', BUT THAT HE WAS STILL HEADED INBND TWD THE NDB. THE CTLR WARNED THAT THE ACFT SHOULD BE AT 3700' UNTIL REACHING THE NDB & REPEATED THE ALTIMETER SETTING. MOMENTS THERE-AFTER, THE CTLR LOST CONTACT WITH THE ACFT. IT CRASHED NR THE TOP OF A HILL ON WOODED TERRAIN AT AN ELEV OF ABOUT 2400',APRX 9 MI BFR REACHING THE NDB. AN EXAM REVEALED THE ACFT NAV EQUIP WAS PROPERLY SET. NO PREIMPACT MALFUNCTION OR FAIL- URE WAS FND. THE ILS SYS WAS FLT CHECKED & FND TO OPERATE NORMALLY.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC87FA038
- Event ID
- 20001213X35255
- Case number
- NYC87FA038
- 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: 3cdc7e62599b3d0e57a8616a69f379291661f1a4c3c9e6afaf3481a9f60d7b7b; retrieved 2026-09-21T04:19:16.842Z.