NYC04FA185 · Cessna A150L
Cessna A150L and Piper PA28-140 · Accident: midair collision en route
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC04FA185
- 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
- 2 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- 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
Aircraft 1 · Cessna A150L
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 150
- 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
- N6186F
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Essex County Airport (CDW), Caldwell, NJTo 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 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
- En route · cruise
- 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
- Midair collision
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Aircraft 2 · Piper PA28-140
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA28
- 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
- N95314
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Lincoln Park Airport (N07), Lincoln Park, NJTo 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 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
- En route · cruise
- 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
- Midair collision
- 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
- Pilots of both aircraft › Visual lookout, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
A Cessna A150L and a Piper PA28-140 collided during cruise flight while flying under day visual flight rules in visual meteorological conditions at approximately 0912:20. Radar data and data extracted from global position system receivers (GPS) found in each airplane were utilized to document the airplanes positions relative to each other. The Cessna departed from an airport (CDW) about 0905, climbed to a radar altitude of about 2,600 feet, and then flew a relatively steady northwest track until the time of the accident. The Piper departed to the south from another airport (N07), about 0909, entered a climbing right turn, and then flew a relatively steady track of 325 degrees. Initially, after the turn to the northwest, the Piper was flying ahead and below the Cessna. The Piper continued to climb on a track of 325 degrees to a maximum GPS altitude of 2,680 feet, while being overtaken by the Cessna. Both airplanes collided while in straight and level flight. A visibility study was conducted using the GPS position data recovered. According to the study the airplane visibility charts the pilot of the Cessna had an approximate 21 second opportunity to acquire the Piper had he been scanning down and to his right, while cruising at 2,600 feet. The Piper at this time was climbing on a southerly track from 375 to 700 feet. The pilot of the Piper had a 21 second opportunity to acquire the Cessna, if he had been scanning forward and to his left while climbing out from 725 to 975 feet and turning from a course of 190 to 250 degrees, on departure to the west. The Cessna at this time was traveling to the northwest, and level at 2,600 feet. The two airplanes continued to converge until they collided and departed from controlled flight, respectively. The airplanes were not in a position for the respective pilots to see each other during the two and a half minutes that preceded the accident. The airplanes impacted the ground about 750 feet apart, in two distinct wreckage fields.
Probable cause
Both pilots inadequate visual lookout, which resulted in a midair collision.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC04FA185
- Event ID
- 20040812X01202
- Case number
- NYC04FA185
- 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, coordinates. 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: 58d50c73f20022bdf11943467fdc56973e258c418c66892fef7c508e9266b33f; retrieved 2026-09-20T18:23:23.020Z.