Sair Aviation Piper PA-31-350 accident
Piper PA-31-350 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water during landing
From Syracuse Hancock International Airport (SYR) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC85LA126
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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-31-350
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-31
- 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
- N3548V
- Operator
- Sair Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Syracuse Hancock International Airport (SYR), Syracuse, NYTo not recorded
- 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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
- Landing · flare/touchdown
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Checklist, not followed
- Pilot in command › Planned approach, poor
- Pilot in command › Wheels up landing, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT RECEIVED A WEATHER BREIFING AND FILED AN IFR FLIGHT PLAN WITH MASSENA FLIGHT SERVICE STATION. THE FLIGHT WAS UNEVENTFUL AND THE AIRCRAFT WAS CLEARED FOR THE NDB APPROACH AT POTSDAM BY BOSTON CENTER. WHEN THE AIRPORT WAS IN SIGHT, THE PILOT CNACELLED THE FLIGHT PLAN AND PROCEEDED VFR TO THE AIRPORT. ACCORDING TO THE PILOT, THE LANDING CHECKLIST WAS STARTED AND THE FLAPS EXTENDED TO 25 DEGREES. AS N3548V CROSSED THE THRESHOLD, THE STALL WARNING HORN SOUNDED AND THE PILOT CHECK ALL CONTROLS PHYSICALLY. ACCORDING TO THE PILOT, THE LANDING GEAR HANDLE WAS ALSO CHECKED. SHORTLY BEFORE THE AIRCRAFT CONTACTING THE RUNWAY,THE LANDING GEAR WARNING HORN SOUNDED.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC85LA126
- Event ID
- 20001214X36588
- Case number
- NYC85LA126
- 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: e1d98042629e2e7702fe01ddb55828f77cc62a7f88de1fb24d6c0bfc76b24414; retrieved 2026-09-18T20:22:42.522Z.