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North Eastern Aviation Gulfstream American CORP. G-1159A incident

10 Mar 2010 · Farmingdale, NY, United States

Gulfstream American CORP. G-1159A · Incident: part(s) separation from aircraft en route

From Republic Airport (FRG) to Witham Field (SUA)

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Event

NTSB case
ERA10IA170
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
Incident
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
Charter & commuter
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

Gulfstream American CORP. G-1159A

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
N155MM
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From Republic Airport (FRG), Farmingdale, NYTo Witham Field (SUA), Stuart, FL
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
En route · climb to cruise
Defining eventThe 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
Part(s) separation from aircraft
DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
Minor

Cause areas

  • Aircraft › Aircraft structures
  • Not determined › Not determined

Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.

NTSB narrative

The pilot-in-command stated that while passing through 35,000 feet mean sea level, the flightcrew heard a sound similar to a compressor stall, followed by a loss of power to the right engine. He immediately declared an emergency with air traffic control and initiated the checklist items for engine shutdown in-flight. Shortly thereafter, the cabin service representative informed him that the No. 4 outer window pane on the right side of the airplane had separated. The flightcrew made a visual approach back to the departure airport and landed without further incident.

A bore scope examination of the engine revealed that it had experienced a compressor stall and flamed out as a result of debris from the No. 4 outer window pane being ingested into the engine. Review of the airplane logbooks revealed that all required inspections had been conducted on the window and no anomalies were noted. Further examination of the window revealed fractures in the outer pane, which originated from an area of preexisting progressive cracking, emanating from the exterior surface of the window. The initial cause of the cracking could not be determined.

Probable cause

Progressive cracking from an undetermined initiation source, which resulted in the failure of the No. 4 cabin window outer pane, and the subsequent foreign object ingestion to the right engine.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record ERA10IA170
Event ID
20100310X51115
Case number
ERA10IA170
Dataset
full-current
Source SHA-256
5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
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: b1f6f0db014c8de3c16edd5356bf1b28000db5bd75c4dcdf590efc61ffff3b04; retrieved 2026-09-15T13:44:07.649Z.