Cessna P210N N99HW

Summary

On 22 June 2004 at about 14:50 local time, a Cessna P210N registered N99HW was involved in an accident near Dunkirk, New York, United States. One person was on board and one died. The aircraft was destroyed. The NTSB has published a probable cause for this accident; it is quoted in full below.

Date

22 June 2004 at 14:50

Classification

Accident

Location

Dunkirk, New York, United States

Nearest airport

Jamestown (JHW)

Coordinates

42.4764, -79.4239

Aircraft

Cessna P210N

Registration

N99HW

Category

Airplane

Engines

1

Operator

Not recorded

Operating rule

Part 91: General Aviation

Purpose of flight

Personal

Phase of flight

Not recorded

Route

Flint → Jameston

Aircraft damage

Destroyed

Weather

IMC

Light

Day

NTSB number

NYC04FA144

1 person died.

The pilot's loss of aircraft control and the subsequent overstress and separation of the wing during an encounter with convection induced turbulence.

Quoted verbatim from the NTSB record. This site does not paraphrase or interpret it.

Read the full NTSB narrative

The pilot was conducting a cross country instrument flight rules flight. The airplane was deviating around thunderstorm activity, and was cleared to it's destination airport, when radar contact was lost. A witness reported hearing an airplane overhead; however, he could not see the airplane due to haze and clouds. He described the engine noise as "revving in a cycling pattern." Within 10 seconds, he observed an airplane exit the clouds in a nose down spiral, with one wing missing. The airplane impacted Lake Erie nose first and sank. Examination of the right wing main spar revealed fractures consistent with an overstress separation and aft and upward loading. The pilot obtained a weather briefing prior to the flight. At the time of the briefing, there were no current or forecasted thunderstorms around the pilot's destination airport. There were also no convective SIGMETs valid for the area where the accident occurred. Review of weather radar around the time of the accident revealed two very strong thunderstorm cells over the western portion of New York, along Lake Erie, moving northeast. The airplane disappeared from radar, as it transitioned through the northern edge of one of the echoes in reflectivity values near 25 dBZ or very light intensity echoes. The geo-synchronous weather satellite-12 (GOES-12) visible image depicted a large band of clouds extending over Lake Erie, and New York. Several Cumulonimbus clouds were located immediately south of the accident site.

Quoted verbatim from the NTSB record.