Mountain Air Cargo de Havilland DHC-6 accident
de Havilland DHC-6 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water en route
From State College Regional Airport (UNV) to PGH · Pittsburgh, PA
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's location. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC86FA006
- 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
- 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
de Havilland DHC-6
- Aircraft type
- de Havilland DHC-6
- 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
- N3257
- Operator
- Mountain Air Cargo
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From State College Regional Airport (UNV), State College, PATo PGH · Pittsburgh, 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 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
- En route · descent
- 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 › Altitude, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Clearance, improper
- Pilot in command › Low pass, performed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE ACFT WAS OBSERVED FLYING AT LOW ALTITUDE ALONG ABOUT A 5 MILE DISTANCE. SOME WITNESSES DESCRIBED THE ACFT ALTITUDE AS JUST ABOVE TREETOPS. WITNESS HEARD ENGINE SOUNDS AND SAW LIGHTS ON THE ACFT. THE ACFT FLIGHT WAS ON A SOUTHEAST DIRECTION BEFORE IT COLLIDED WITH RISING TERRAIN AT A HEIGHT OF ABOUT 1250 FT. THE WRECKAGE WAS SCATTERED ALONG A DISTANCE OF 375 FT AND ORIENTED ON A 160 DEGREE MAGNETIC HEADING. THE DESTINATION, PITTSBURGH, IS LOCATED SOUTHWEST OF THE DEPARTURE POINT, STATE COLLEGE. EVIDENCE OF ACFT MALFUNCTION WAS NOT DISCLOSED. THE ACFT HAD 1902 LBS OF CARGO INCLUDING 65 LBS OF DRY ICE WHICH WAS CONTAINED IN STYROFOAM BOXES. AUTOPSY AND TOXICOLOGICAL FINDINGS WERE NEGATIVE. THE PLT FLEW NIGHTLY, FROM STATE COLLEGE TO PITTSBURGH AND RETURNED THE FOLLOWING MORNING. HE OPERATED A BUSINESS DURING THE DAY. WITNESSES STATED THE PLT WAS WELL RESTED AND IN GOOD SPIRITS BEFORE THE FLIGHT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC86FA006
- Event ID
- 20001214X38121
- Case number
- NYC86FA006
- 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 1985-10-12.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 158eb250a4f38cf38f82c9767e16f91ee6a03359d35b790d174c32d54b335507; retrieved 2026-09-18T14:24:45.486Z.