Skip to content

NYC89LA034

1988-11-20 · OXFORD, Connecticut, United States · Serious · 1 aircraft · Status: Completed

Airport OXC

N468CM has since been reassigned. It is now registered to a different aircraft (CESSNA 172R, built 2000), which was not involved in this event.

Aircraft involved

Probable cause & findings

COLLISION WITH TREES AND TERRAIN DUE TO THE PILOT EXCEEDING APPROACH MINIMUM ALTITUDE DURING AN ILS APPROACH.

Factual narrative

ACCORDING TO WITNESSES, THE WX WAS CHANGING FROM MINUTE TO MINUTE AS THE ACFT WAS ARRIVING. WITNESSES RPRTD THE WIND WAS BLOWING FROM EAST TO NORTHEAST AT 10 TO 15 KTS, RAIN FALL WAS VARYING FROM STRONG TO PERIODS OF LIGHT RAIN, AND THE CEILING (CLOUD LEVEL) WAS VARIABLE. THE PLT BEGAN AN ILS RWY 36 APCH; HOWEVER, BEFORE REACHING THE ARPT, THE ACFT COLLIDED WITH TREES & CRASHED ABOUT 2 MI SHORT OF THE RWY. THE PLT WAS SERIOUSLY INJURED & COULD NOT REMEMBER THE ACDNT, BUT DID RECALLED RECEIVING A WIND SHEAR ALERT. THE PLT RPRTD AN INTERMITTENT PROBLEM WITH THE AUTOPILOT HEADING MODE; HOWEVER, NO OTHER PREIMPACT MALFUNCTION OR FAILURE OF THE ACFT WAS EVIDENT. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database (Pre-2008 Archive) Retrieved: 2026-02-12

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_1988_NYC89LA034.txt. Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb. Full investigation docket on data.ntsb.gov ↗.

Related research

Matched on aircraft type or causal vocabulary (wind shear, autopilot). All research papers