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Atlas / NTSB / NYC90LA001

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event NYC90LA001

1989-10-01 BINGHAM, Maine, United States Airport · ME08 Serious 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Aircraft involved

Probable cause & findings

THE PILOT'S INADEQUATE PREFLIGHT PLANNING TO ASSURE THAT THE AIRPLANE WAS CAPABLE OF OUTCLIMBING THE SURROUNDING TERRAIN UNDER THE EXISTING WIND AND AIRPLANE WEIGHT CONDITIONS, RESULTING IN AN INTENTIONAL STALL INTO THE TERRAIN. CONTRIBUTING FACTOR(S) WAS: THE TERRAIN AND WIND CONDITIONS.

Factual narrative

THE AIRPLANE WAS ON A LOCAL SIGHTSEEING FLT WITH THE PLT, 2 ADULT PAX & 3 CHILDREN AGES 5 THRU 11. AFTER MAKING A LEFT TURNOUT AFTER TAKEOFF, THE PLT REALIZED HE COULD NOT OUTCLIMB THE TERRAIN, SO HE SHUT EVERYTHING OFF AND STALLED INTO THE TREES. WHEN THE PILOT MADE HIS LEFT TURNOUT, THE AIRPLANE WAS OPERATING ON THE DOWNWIND SIDE OF A RIDGE WITH 10-15 KT WINDS. THE AIRPLANE'S WEIGHT & BALANCE COULD NOT BE DETERMINED. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database (Pre-2008 Archive) Retrieved: 2026-02-12

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_1989_NYC90LA001.txt. Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb. Full investigation docket on data.ntsb.gov ↗.

Related research

What the literature says.

Academic papers and agency reports matching this event's aircraft type or causal vocabulary (stall). Sourced from NASA NTRS, NTSB Safety Studies, FAA CAMI, AOPA Air Safety Institute, Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons, arXiv, and the Semantic Scholar academic graph.

Browse the full corpus — academia portal ↗