BFO86FA002
1985-10-04 · GAITHERSBURG, Maryland, United States · Fatal · 1 aircraft · Status: Completed
Airport GAI
Aircraft involved
Factual narrative
THE PLT WAS CLRD FOR A VOR RWY 14 APCH. ON APCH, HE RPRTD AT THE SLEET INTXN (A FIX ON THE NDB APCH). THE ACFT WAS THEN SEEN FLYING OVR THE ARPT ON AN EASTERLY HDG. UNICOM OPERATOR SAID HE THEN HEARD THE PLT CALL "TURNING FINAL." HOWEVER, BFR LNDG, THE ACFT HIT TREES & CRASHED APRX .6 MI EAST OF THE ARPT. NO PREIMPACT MECHANICAL PROBLEMS WERE FND. WITNESSESESTD A 200' CEILING, VIS 1/4 TO 1/2 MI. A WX STUDY INDCD THE CLD BASES WERE NR 600' MSL, THE VIS (BLO CLDS) WAS LESS 1 MI. MIN DSCNT ALT (MDA) & CIRCLING MIN ALT FOR THE APCH WERE 1180'. ARPT ELEV WAS 540'. DRG ARR, BFR REACHING THE VOR INITIAL APCH FIX (IAF) (17.3 MI NW OF ARPT), THE BWI CTLR CLRD THE PLT TO THE MIN VECTORING ALT (400' BLO THE IAF ALT), BUT DELAYED ADVISING FOR 8-1/2 MIN THAT RADAR CONTACT WAS LOST. AFTER REACHING THE IAF, THE PLT DELAYED TURNING OUTBND TWD THE HOLDING PATTERN. HE CONTD THE TURN & INTERCEPTED THE INBND COURSE FOR THE APCH APRX 15 MI NW OF THE ARPT. ARTCC RADAR (NOT AVAILABLE TO THE CTLR) SHOWED THE ACFT TRACKED RGT OF COURSE UNTIL CONTACT WAS LOST APRX 4 MI NW OF ARPT. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database (Pre-2008 Archive) Retrieved: 2026-02-12
Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file
NTSB_1985_BFO86FA002.txt.
Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb.
Full investigation docket on
data.ntsb.gov ↗.
Search this event elsewhere
External sources are reported, not agency: signal that something happened, not fact about what happened.
- TallyAero Live Wire Aviation press
- NTSB CAROL Agency ↗
- NTSB Docket Agency ↗
- Aviation Safety Network Aviation press ↗
- Kathryn's Report Aviation press ↗
- Aviation Herald Aviation press ↗
- AVweb Aviation press ↗
- Pilots of America Community ↗
- Reddit /r/flying Community ↗
- FlightAware Aviation press ↗
- AOPA accident database Aviation press ↗
- Google News News ↗
- DuckDuckGo News ↗