NYC06FA034 · Piper PA-23-250
Piper PA-23-250 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water on approach
From Hartford Brainard Airport (HFD) to Patrick Leahy Burlington International Airport (BTV)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC06FA034
- 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
- 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
- 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
- N26399
- Operator
- Donald Roberge
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Hartford Brainard Airport (HFD), Hartford, CTTo Patrick Leahy Burlington International Airport (BTV), Burlington, VT
- 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 · IFR final 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 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › IFR procedure, not followed
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While flying the ILS approach to the destination airport, the airplane remained aligned (laterally) with the inbound approach course; however, it remained above the glideslope, and then descended through it, approximately 7 miles from the runway. The airplane continued a gradual descent until it impacted wooded terrain approximately 3 miles from the approach end of the runway. Examination of the airplane revealed no mechanical deficiencies. The airport was equipped with a Minimum Safe Altitude Warning System (MSAW) designed to alert controllers when an aircraft is in danger of colliding with terrain or obstructions. Examination of system documentation and the radar replay revealed a low-altitude alert was displayed on the radar screen, and an alert message was sent to activate the MSAW alarms. Although the approach controller had transferred control of the airplane to the local controller, he continued to monitor the airplane on the approach. When he noticed the airplane descend below the glidepath, he notified the local controller, whose radar display also indicated a low altitude alert; however, the local controller's first instruction to the pilot to "climb," was 5 seconds after the last target was observed on radar. The pilot reported 470 total hours of flight experience, and 92 hours of total (actual) instrument flight time. During the preceding 6 months, the pilot accumulated 2 hours of instrument flight time.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to follow the published instrument flight procedure, which resulted in an in-flight collision with terrain. Factors in the accident were the local air traffic controller's inadequate monitoring of the MSAW system, and his delayed instructions for the pilot to gain altitude.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC06FA034
- Event ID
- 20051218X01987
- Case number
- NYC06FA034
- 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: 5bcdc3ecc088c7c8732e63a6028c524654ce082952723242e4461d974452aad6; retrieved 2026-09-20T17:44:43.047Z.