NYC08FA041 · Cirrus Design Corp SR20
Cirrus Design Corp SR20 · Accident: in flight collision with object on approach
From Lynchburg Regional Airport - Preston Glenn Field (LYH) to New York Stewart International Airport (SWF)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC08FA041
- 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
Cirrus Design Corp SR20
- Aircraft type
- Cirrus SR20
- 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
- N108GD
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Lynchburg Regional Airport - Preston Glenn Field (LYH), Lynchburg, VATo New York Stewart International Airport (SWF), Newburgh, NY
- 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
- 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 object
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Proper glidepath, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was attempting his second instrument landing system approach in night instrument meteorological conditions, below the published approach weather minimums (which were not a regulatory limit for the flight) when the accident happened. After the first approach resulted in a missed approach, the pilot reported that he established the airplane on the localizer course and that the airplane was then cleared to land, which the pilot acknowledged. No further transmissions were received from the accident airplane, which impacted trees and uneven terrain about 2 miles from the approach end of the runway. The pilot did not survive, but both passengers did. The passengers stated that the airplane was flying in foggy conditions; however, the flight seemed normal until the airplane impacted trees. Examination of the airplane did not reveal any preimpact malfunctions. The pilot woke up about 19 hours prior to the accident and the investigation revealed that he did not sleep between the start of his day and the accident. The pilot was not issued a minimum safe altitude warning (MSAW) by air traffic control because the radar sensor being used to track the airplane did not provide sufficient coverage to trigger an MSAW alarm. A different system was available to the controller that if selected would have sounded an MSAW.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain the proper glidepath during an instrument-landing-system approach in fog. Contributing to the accident were pilot fatigue and air traffic control's failure to issue a minimum safe altitude warning.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC08FA041
- Event ID
- 20071221X01984
- Case number
- NYC08FA041
- 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. 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: a8450c70432a11fbb7aaa697a3aa08b1d328b5158f1cf2f82546d3f4947b18c0; retrieved 2026-09-20T16:06:20.373Z.