NYC08FA022 · Cessna 650
Empire Airways Cessna 650 · Accident: hard landing
From Republic Airport (FRG) to Atlantic City International Airport (ACY)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC08FA022
- 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
- 0 · 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
Cessna 650
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 650
- 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
- N697MC
- Operator
- Empire Airways
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Republic Airport (FRG), Farmingdale, NYTo Atlantic City International Airport (ACY), Atlantic City, NJ
- 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
- Landing
- 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
- Hard landing
- 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
- Other crewmember › Airspeed, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Remedial action, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The first officer was flying the Area Navigation, Global Positioning System, approach to runway 22. During the approach, the airplane was initially fast as the first officer had increased engine power to compensate for wind conditions. Descending below the minimum descent altitude (MDA), the first officer momentarily deployed the speed brakes, but stowed them about 200 feet above ground level (agl), and reduced the engine power to flight idle. The airplane became low and slow, and developed an excessive sink rate. The airplane subsequently landed hard on runway 22, which drove the right main landing gear into the right wing, resulting in substantial damage to the right wing spar. The first officer reported intermittent airspeed fluctuations between his airspeed indicator and the captain's airspeed indicator; however, a subsequent check of the pitot-static system did not reveal any anomalies that would have precluded normal operation of the airspeed indicators. About the time of the accident, the recorded wind was from 190 degrees at 11 knots, gusting to 24 knots; and the captain believed that the airplane had encountered windshear near the MDA, with the flaps fully extended. Review of air traffic control data revealed that no windshear advisories were contained in the automated terminal information system broadcasts. Although the local controller provided windshear advisories to prior landing aircraft, he did not provide one to the accident aircraft. Review of the airplane flight manual (AFM) revealed that deploying the speed brakes below 500 feet agl, with the flaps in any position other than the retracted position, was prohibited.
Probable cause
The first officer's failure to maintain airspeed during approach, and the captain's inadequate remedial action. Contributing to the accident was the first officer's failure to comply with procedures, windshear, and the lack of windshear warning from air traffic control.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC08FA022
- Event ID
- 20071106X01733
- Case number
- NYC08FA022
- 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: 91b54b60f2119cc6364b62a6ddb8294d378203722b5237360bdacda37bb7a2a3; retrieved 2026-09-22T03:18:43.166Z.