NTSB CAROL · Event
Event NYC82FNA20
Registry · N71MA
FAA Aircraft Registry record.
Make / Model
AVIAT AIRCRAFT INC A-1B
Seats / Engines
2 seats · 1 engine
ADS-B equipped
Yes — Mode-S A97AC8
Registrant of record
SCHUPPAN GOETZ N
Source: FAA Aircraft Registry (releasable master file).
Aircraft involved
Factual narrative
DURING AN ILS WITH THE AUTOPILOT COUPLER ON, A HIGH SINK RATE DEVELOPED TOWARD THE END OF THE APPROACH. THE PILOT UNCOUPLED THE AUTOPILOT AND BEGAN A MISSED APPROACH, BUT THE AIRCRAFT HIT THE TOP OF A TREE. HE DIVERTED AND LANDED AT PROVIDENCE, RI WITHOUT FURTHER INCIDENT. AFTER LANDING, SUBSTANTIAL DAMAGE OF THE RIGHT FLAP AND RIGHT PROPELLER WAS FOUND. A BENCH CHECK OF THE BENDIX FCS-810 AUTOPILOT REVEALED THAT THE TRANSISTORS IN THE GLIDE SLOPE WASH-OUT CIRCUIT WERE FAULTY. THEY WERE INTERMITTENTLY APPLYING A POSITIVE VOLTAGE THAT RESULTED IN A FALSE PITCH GYRO SIGNAL AND A DOWNWARD HARDOVER. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database (Pre-2008 Archive) Retrieved: 2026-02-12
Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file
NTSB_1982_NYC82FNA20.txt.
Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb.
Full investigation docket on
data.ntsb.gov ↗.
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Related research
What the literature says.
Academic papers and agency reports matching this event's aircraft type or causal vocabulary (autopilot). Sourced from NASA NTRS, NTSB Safety Studies, FAA CAMI, AOPA Air Safety Institute, Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons, arXiv, and the Semantic Scholar academic graph.
- arXiv 2025 · arXiv preprint
ROSflight 2.0: Lean ROS 2-Based Autopilot for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
ROSflight is a lean, open-source autopilot ecosystem for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Designed by researchers for researchers, it is built to lower the barrier to entry to UAV research and acceler…
- arXiv 2025 · arXiv preprint
ROSplane 2.0: A Fixed-Wing Autopilot for Research
Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) research requires the integration of cutting-edge technology into existing autopilot frameworks.
- arXiv 2024 · arXiv preprint
A Data-Driven Autopilot for Fixed-Wing Aircraft Based on Model Predictive Control
Autopilots for fixed-wing aircraft are typically designed based on linearized aerodynamic models consisting of stability and control derivatives obtained from wind-tunnel testing.
- arXiv 2022 · arXiv preprint
Experimental Flight Testing of a Fault-Tolerant Adaptive Autopilot for Fixed-Wing Aircraft
This paper presents an adaptive autopilot for fixed-wing aircraft and compares its performance with a fixed-gain autopilot.
- arXiv 2021 · arXiv preprint
An Adaptive Digital Autopilot for Fixed-Wing Aircraft with Actuator Faults
This paper develops an adaptive digital autopilot for a fixed-wing aircraft and compares its performance with a fixed-gain autopilot.
- arXiv 2020 · arXiv preprint
Reinforcement Learning for Robust Missile Autopilot Design
Designing missiles' autopilot controllers has been a complex task, given the extensive flight envelope and the nonlinear flight dynamics.
Browse the full corpus — academia portal ↗