Northeast Airlines Flight 946
Fairchild FH227C · Controlled flight into terrain due to pilot error
From Boston, MA to Montpelier, VT
Event
- 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
- Unknown
- Event fatalities
- 32 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- Occupants
- Unknown
- Survivors
- 10
- InjuriesFatal: death within 30 days. Serious: over 48 hours in hospital within a week, most broken bones, severe bleeding, nerve or organ damage, or serious burns. Minor: anything less. Glossary
- 10
- 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
- Airline
- 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
Fairchild FH227C
- Aircraft type
- Fairchild FH227
- 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
- N380NE
- Operator
- Northeast Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Boston, MATo Montpelier, 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 121: Air carrier (scheduled domestic passenger service)
- 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 · descent
- 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
- Controlled collision with ground/water
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Airports/airways/facilities › VOR
- Miscellaneous acts, conditions › Erratic
- Pilot in command › Became lost/disoriented
- Pilot in command › Failed to follow approved procedures, directives, etc.
- Pilot in command › Improper IFR operation
Approximate · Coordinates from the Wikipedia article; not checked against an investigation report.
From the Wikipedia article
Northeast Airlines Flight 946 was a domestic U.S. flight from Boston, Massachusetts, to Montpelier, Vermont, with a scheduled stop in Lebanon, New Hampshire, operated by Northeast Airlines. On October 25, 1968, shortly after 6 p.m. local time, the Fairchild Hiller FH-227 aircraft crashed on Moose Mountain in Grafton County, New Hampshire, while descending on approach. The crash killed 32 of 42 passengers and crew; 10 people survived the crash with minor or moderate injuries. It remains the deadliest plane crash in New Hampshire history.
Flight and crash
At 5:42 p.m. ET, Northeast Airlines Flight 946 left Logan International Airport towards its first stop in Lebanon, New Hampshire. The plane carried 39 passengers and three crew members. Upon being cleared for the instrument approach, the flight service station at Lebanon advised the crew that the weather was "an estimated ceiling of 2,000 feet overcast; visibility was 10 miles; there were breaks in the overcast." The flight was "normal and routine" until the plane approached Lebanon Municipal Airport, which is located in a valley, surrounded by nearby hills.
At 6:11 p.m., the pilots radioed the control tower that they were executing a standard approach maneuver before preparing to land. Air traffic control replied and gave the crew weather, visibility and other information regarding conditions at the airport. At approximately 6:17 p.m., the plane crashed into the side of Moose Mountain. The impact killed 30 of the 39 passengers and two of the three crew members; 31 people died on impact and one died later. A post-impact fire consumed much of the wreckage and, due to the remoteness of the crash site, lasted for approximately 18 hours until it burned itself out.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Northeast Airlines Flight 946” (revision 1367519743, retrieved 2026-09-18) by its authors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Extracted as plain text: references, tables, images and some sections are left out. Read the article
NTSB remarks
NONSTNDRD INST APCH.NAV INSTS INDCD IMPNDG STA PSG DUE CRS RUFNESS.UN DTRMN POSIT.PREMATURE DSCNT.
NTSB's remark from its 1962–1981 archive, as recorded (abbreviated, at most 98 characters): the archive has no narrative
Sources
Wikipedia article: Northeast Airlines Flight 946
- Revision
- 1367519743 · 2026-08-03 · retrieved 2026-09-18
- Wikidata
- Q7057813
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
NTSB record
- Event ID
- 19681025P023257
- Case number
- Unknown
- Dataset
- historical-pre1982
- Source SHA-256
- abe1a933b4b73583d61684309f7f0610c281e3c1de3537c6471bf2a98ba6481d
Where each value comes from
- Record
- Wikipedia article "Northeast Airlines Flight 946" (page 7286679, revision 1367519743); merged with NTSB case NTSB19681025P023257 (PRE1982 tblFirstHalf (one row per aircraft, grouped by date, place and time))
- Date
- NTSB record NTSB19681025P023257: PRE1982 DATE_OCCURRENCE
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site; country from NTSB record NTSB19681025P023257
- Map position
- Wikipedia: Wikipedia article coordinates
- Aircraft, operator and route
- NTSB record NTSB19681025P023257: PRE1982 REGIST_NO, ACFT_MAKE, ACFT_MODEL; gaps from Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports)
- Operation
- NTSB record NTSB19681025P023257: operated under Part 121: Air carrier (scheduled domestic passg.svc)
- Fatalities
- NTSB record NTSB19681025P023257: PRE1982 TOTAL_ABRD_FATAL of each aircraft, plus people on the ground and others outside the aircraft
- Ground fatalities
- NTSB record NTSB19681025P023257: events.inj_f_grnd
- Summary
- Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (4)
- One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "Northeast Airlines Flight 946" and NTSB case NTSB19681025P023257, matched by the same aircraft registration and date. For this US event the NTSB's values are used where the two differ; each value names its source.
- From NTSB's 1962-1981 archive (PRE1982), which holds at most a short remark (98 characters, abbreviated) instead of a narrative; the accident type, phase of flight, causes and conditions are NTSB's codes, decoded as the archive defines them.
- Reviewed means this record passed the site's consistency check, not that it was checked against a narrative or report - there is none to check against.
- The operation category is mapped from the archive's operator and operation codes and has not been reviewed.