Susquehanna Airlines Piper PA-23-250 accident
Piper PA-23-250 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather on approach
From Greater Binghamton/Edwin A Link field (BGM) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC85FA044
- 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
- 4 · 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Piper PA-23-250
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-23
- 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
- N6099Y
- Operator
- Susquehanna Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Greater Binghamton/Edwin A Link field (BGM), Binghamton, 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
- 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 encounter with weather
- 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); Tree(s)
- 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 › Proper altitude, not maintained
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, continued
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
VFR CONDITIONS PREVAILED WHEN THE FLT DEPARTED BINGHAMTON, NY. THE DESTINATION WAS REPORTED AS CLEAR UNTIL JUST PRIOR TO THE ESTIMATED TIME OF ARRIVAL, THEN FOG BEGAN TO FORM. WITNESSES WHO HEARD THE ACFT, JUST PRIOR TO THE ACCIDENT, REPORTED HEAVY FOG. AFTER MAKING AN APCH TO RWY 7, THE ACFT TURNED TO A HEADING OF ABOUT 220 DEG, THEN COLLIDED WITH TREES ON A WOODED HILL, .85 MI NORTH OF THE ARPT. NO PREIMPACT PART FAILURE OR MALFUNCTION WAS FOUND. THE ELEVATION OF THE MAIN WRECKAGE WAS 1395 FT; THE ARPT ELEVATION WAS 1027 FT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC85FA044
- Event ID
- 20001214X41876
- Case number
- NYC85FA044
- 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 1984-12-18.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 68e3c81742128faf6519c9818825f27db5ef899108420c773d0f9a6c52af70cb; retrieved 2026-09-18T14:27:18.164Z.