Skip to content

NYC90LA032

1989-11-23 · JOHNSTOWN, Pennsylvania, United States · Serious · 1 aircraft · Status: Completed

Airport JST

N1028Q has since been reassigned. It is now registered to a different aircraft (CARTER RICHARD L BUDDY BABY LAKES), which was not involved in this event.

Aircraft involved

Probable cause & findings

FAILURE OF THE PILOT TO MAINTAIN PROPER AIRSPEED AND ALTITUDE ON AN ILS FINAL APPROACH, WHICH ALLOWED THE AIRCRAFT TO DESCEND BELOW THE GLIDE PATH AND COLLIDE WITH APPROACH LIGHTING. FACTORS RELATED TO THE ACCIDENT WERE: DARKNESS, ADVERSE WEATHER CONDITIONS, THE PILOT'S DECISION TO FLY IN KNOWN ADVERSE WEATHER (ICING) CONDITIONS, AND STRUCTURAL ICING.

Factual narrative

DRG ARRIVAL, THE PLT WAS ADVISED THAT THE WX WAS: 300' OVC, VIS 3 MI WITH FRZG RAIN, LGT DRZL & LGT SNOW. HE INITIATED AN ILS RWY 33 APCH & ENCTRD TURBC. HE ELECTED TO MAKE A MISSED APCH & FLEW BACK FOR A 2ND APCH. ON THE 2ND APCH, HE ENCTRD TURBC AGAIN, THEN NOTICED THE ACFT WAS LOSING SPEED. THE PLT SAID HE APPLIED FULL POWER & THAT WAS THE LAST THING HE COULD REMEMBER. THE ACFT CRASHED WHEN IT STRUCK APCH LGTS ABOUT 600' SHORT OF THE RWY. WHEN THE ACFT WAS EXAMINED THE NEXT DAY, AIRFRAME ICE WAS STILL ATTACHED TO THE LEADING EDGE & LOWER SFC OF THE WINGS. NO PREIMPACT PART FAILURE OR MALFUNCTION OF THE ACFT WAS FOUND. DRG A WX BRIEFING BEFORE THE FLT, THE PLT HAD BEEN GIVEN ADVISORIES FOR SNOW & LGT TO MOD RIME ICING CONDITIONS. THE ACFT WAS NOT EQUIPPED FOR FLT IN KNOWN ICG CONDS. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database (Pre-2008 Archive) Retrieved: 2026-02-12

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_1989_NYC90LA032.txt. Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb. Full investigation docket on data.ntsb.gov ↗.

Search this event elsewhere

External sources are reported, not agency: signal that something happened, not fact about what happened.

Related research

Matched on aircraft type or causal vocabulary (icing). All research papers