Cessna 172M accident near Lancaster, NY
On September 27, 2014, a Cessna 172M (airplane) was involved in an accident near Lancaster, NY. 2 people died. Damage to the aircraft: destroyed.
- Date
- September 27, 2014
- Place
- Lancaster, NY
- Aircraft
- Cessna 172M · Airplane
- Injuries
- 2 fatal, 0 serious, 0 minor
- Damage
- Destroyed
- Position
- 42.898°N, 78.581°W
- NTSB ID
- 20140927X22122
NTSB summary
HISTORY OF FLIGHT On September 27, 2014, about 1020 eastern daylight time, a Cessna 172M, N9679H, and an experimental amateur-built Searey XLS, N89KD, collided in midair approximately 2 miles southeast of the Buffalo-Lancaster Regional Airport (BQR), Lancaster, New York. The commercial pilot and passenger on board the Cessna were fatally injured. The pilot of the Searey performed a forced landing to a thicket of low brush, and the airplane was substantially damaged. The private pilot and passenger in the Searey were not injured. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed and no flight plan was filed for either airplane, each on local personal flights which departed BQR at 1009 (Searey) and 1012 (Cessna). Both airplanes were participating in an Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) Young Eagles event, and the flights were conducted under the provisions of Title 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 91. Several witnesses provided statements, and their accounts were consistent throughout. They each said their attention was drawn to the sound of the airplanes and/or the sound of collision. The airplanes were both traveling westbound as one airplane overtook the other, or was on top of the other, before one airplane (Cessna) was seen to "tip" or "roll" inverted before it descended vertically in a spiral. The second airplane (Searey) descended in a 180-degree turn and the sound of the engine was increasing and decreasing, "revving" or "sputtering" throughout the descent. Radar information provided by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) depicted both airplanes traveling west
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain an adequate visual lookout for known traffic in the fly-in event traffic pattern, which resulted in a midair collision.
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Browse: New York · Cessna aircraft
Source: NTSB aviation accident database (US government, public domain). Findings may be preliminary or later revised by the NTSB. Not a complete global record.
