NYC83FA203 · Piper PA-28-181
Piper PA-28-181 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water on approach
From Block Island State Airport (BID) to 7B8 · Waterford, CT
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC83FA203
- 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Piper PA-28-181
- 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
- N6877J
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Block Island State Airport (BID), BLOCK ISLAND, RITo 7B8 · Waterford, CT
- 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 · VFR pattern base
- 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
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Fishers Island, NY, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE PLT HAD CALLED HIS HOME BASE & WAS TOLD THAT FOG WAS BEGINNING TO MOVE SHOREWARD & THAT THE INTENDED DESTINATION, (WATERFORD, CT) WOULD NOT REMAIN VFR FOR LONG. THE PLTS OF N6877J & ANOTHER ACFT CHOSE TO DEPART IMMEDIATELY. BEFORE ARRIVING, FOG HAD MOVED IN, SO THEY ELECTED TO DIVERT TO FISHERS ISLAND, NY. DURING THEIR ARRIVAL TO FISHERS ISLAND, THE PLT OF N6877J WAS LEADING. IT WAS A DARK NIGHT, BUT THE PLT OF THE FOLLOWING ACFT ESTIMATED THAT THE VISIBILITY IN THAT AREA WAS APRX 15 MI. WHILE THE PLT OF THE 2ND ACFT WAS STILL AT 3000 FT, HE OBSERVED N6877J ON A 1 MI BASE LEG FOR RWY 19 WHEN IT CRASHED. HE STATED THAT THE ACFT APPEARED TO DO A CARTWHEEL ON THE WATER WHEN IT IMPACTED. TWO ACFT WHEELS & THE PLTS BODY WERE RECOVERED, BUT THE MAIN WRECKAGE WAS NOT FOUND. THE ARPT WAS EQUIPPED WITH MEDIUM INTENSITY RWY LIGHTS, BUT THERE WERE NO VASI LIGHTS INSTALLED & NO INSTRUMENT APPROACH FOR THE ARPT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC83FA203
- Event ID
- 20001214X44302
- Case number
- NYC83FA203
- 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 1983-08-06.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 4db62f77d44387c1d01f272183490733078eb4321b35b5c15c47a8283b14c984; retrieved 2026-09-21T06:22:59.504Z.