NTSB CAROL · Event
Event NYC83FA121
Aircraft involved
Factual narrative
THE ACFT COLLIDED WITH THE GROUND IN IMC AFTER THE PLT REPORTED HE LOST HIS VACUUM INSTRUMENTS. THE FLT ORIGINATED AT MATTITUCK, NY WITH A DESTINATION OF LEBANON, NH. AFTER DEPARTURE THE PLT WAS CLEARED TO CLIMB TO 7000 FT. THE INSTRUMENTRATED PILOT WAS ON AN IFR FLT PLAN. ABOUT 8 MINUTES AFTER DEPARTURE THE PILOT RADIOED THAT HE HAD EXPERIENCED A LOSS OF VACUUM AND HIS ARTIFICIAL HORIZON WAS INOPERATIVE. HE ALSO STATED HE HAD NO AUTOPILOT AND REQUESTED RADAR VECTORING. HE WAS GIVEN A HEADING OF 050 FOR RADAR VECTORING TO NORWICH VOR. ABOUT 2 MINUTES LATER THE PILOT RADIOED HE WAS 'IN TROUBLE AND IN A DIVE.' ONE MIN LATER HE RADIOED 'ONE THOUSAND FT I AM IN DEEP TROUBLE HERE.' THIS WAS THE LAST RADIO CALL FROM THE PLT. WITNESSES IN THE AREA HEARD & SAW THE ACFT COME OUT OF THE CLOUDS AT 200-300 FT & THEN CLIMB BACK INTO THE FOG BANK. SHORTLY THEREAFTER, A 'WHISTLING DIVE' WAS HEARD FOLLOWED BY THE SOUND OF A CRASH. THE WX IN THAT AREA WAS DESCRIBED AS FOG, LIGHT RAIN, & OVERCAST. EXAM OF THE ACFT WRECKAGE REVEALED THAT THE VACUUM PUMP FAILED. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database (Pre-2008 Archive) Retrieved: 2026-02-12
Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file
NTSB_1983_NYC83FA121.txt.
Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb.
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Related research
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Academic papers and agency reports matching this event's aircraft type or causal vocabulary (imc, 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 ↗