Basco Flying Service Piper PA-32-260 accident
Piper PA-32-260 · Accident: loss of engine power on approach
From Philadelphia International Airport (PHL) to Pottstown Municipal Airport (N47)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC83FA037
- 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
- 3 · 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-32-260
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-32
- 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
- N32750
- Operator
- Basco Flying Service
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Philadelphia International Airport (PHL), Philadelphia, PATo Pottstown Municipal Airport (N47), Pottstown, 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
- Approach · IFR missed 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
- Loss of engine power
- 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
- 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
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
AT APRX 1540 EST, THE ACFT WAS DISPATCHED TO PHILADELPHIA, PA ON A PAX FLT. AFTER ARRIVING, THE PLT REMAINED THERE TO PICK UP 4 OTHER PAX THAT WERE ARRIVING AT APPROX 2100 EST. AT 2007, THE PLT RECEIVED A PARTIAL WX BRIEF & FILED AN IFR FLT PLAN TO RTN TO POTTSTOWN. THE ACFT DEPARTED WITH AN IFR CLNC AT 2145 & PROCEEDED AT 3000 FT MSL, JUST ABV THE CLD TOPS. DRG ARRIVAL, THE PLT WAS CLRD FOR A VOR-B APCH TO THE POTTSTOWN MUNI ARPT. HE RPRTD THAT HE COULD SEE THE ARPT BEACON FROM OVER THE VOR, BUT NOTED PATCHY GND FOG. THE APCH WAS CONTD TO THE MISSED APCH POINT WHERE HE LOST SITE OF THE BCN. HE BGN MAKING A MISSED APCH; HOWEVER, WHEN THE THROTTLE WAS ADVANCED, NO DIFFERENCE IN ENG SOUND WAS NOTED, EXCEPT HE RECALLED THERE MAY HAVE BEEN SOME "FLUTTER IN THE ENGINE." RPRTDLY, THE ACFT CONTD DSNDG & SLOWING TIL IT HIT TREES AT 440 FT MSL, APRX 1 MI NW OF THE ARPT (ARPT ELEV 256 FT). NO PREIMPACT FAILURE WAS FOUND. TEMP & DEW PT WERE 48 DEG, ICG PROB CHART INDICATED SERIOUS CARB ICG CONDS WERE PRESENT. HOWEVER, PSN OF CARB HEAT CTL COULD NOT BE VERIFIED.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC83FA037
- Event ID
- 20020917X05062
- Case number
- NYC83FA037
- 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 1982-12-02.
- API snapshot SHA-256: fdf53c4392308df0ee7828e66b31df8e014e063a519171120f15bf4ce3b9a9a3; retrieved 2026-09-18T14:31:47.099Z.