Skip to content

Atlas / NTSB / NYC90LA006

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event NYC90LA006

1989-10-07 STERLING, Massachusetts, United States Airport · 3B3 None 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Registry · N69169

FAA Aircraft Registry record.

Make / Model

VAN'S AIRCRAFT RV-8

Seats / Engines

2 seats · 1 engine

ADS-B equipped

Yes — Mode-S A931B9

Source: FAA Aircraft Registry (releasable master file).

Aircraft involved

Probable cause & findings

INFLIGHT LOSS OF CONTROL DUE TO INADVERTENT RETRACTION OF THE WING FLAPS DURING A GO AROUND.

Factual narrative

THE STUDENT PILOT IN THE CESSNA 152, RETURNED FOR LANDING. HE WAS LANDING ON RUNWAY 34 WITH A VARIABLE CROSSWIND FROM 340-250 DEGREES AT 10-15 KNOTS. HE SAID HE HAD LANDING FLAPS (30 DEGREES) AND THEN STARTED TO DRIFT RIGHT. HE SAID HE ADDED FULL POWER FOR A GO AROUND, TRIED TO RETRACT THE WING FLAPS TO 20 DEGREES, HOWEVER, THEY CAME UP ALL THE WAY AND THE AIRCRAFT STALLED, STRIKING THE RUNWAY IN A NOSE LOW ATTITUDE. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database (Pre-2008 Archive) Retrieved: 2026-02-12

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_1989_NYC90LA006.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, loss of control). 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 ↗