The solo pilot of the Cessna was killed, and both helicopter pilots suffered serious injuries, when the Cessna struck the helicopter from behind during a landing attempt at Carlisle Airport (N94). The helicopter, operated by the Pennsylvania State Police, had arrived from Harrisburg’s Capital City Airport (KCXY) on a training flight and conducted a straight-in approach to Runway 28, then decelerated to a hover taxi. The airplane crossed over the field to the northeast, then turned to enter a left crosswind for the runway. A witness monitoring the airport’s common traffic advisory frequency heard one of the helicopter pilots advise the Cessna pilot to extend his downwind leg, which he acknowledged.
Security footage showed that the helicopter was still over the runway when the Cessna crossed the threshold but moved off it and into a hover about 50 feet to the north. The airplane flew down the runway with flaps extended but did not touch down, then pitched up sharply. Its right wing dropped, and it veered right, leveling the wings just before flying into the helicopter’s tail rotor and then its main rotor. The Cessna was described as “shredded.” The helicopter fuselage came to rest on its left side after the tailboom and main rotor separated.
Both pilots and all six passengers were killed when the twin-engine Conquest II crashed half a mile short of the runway on its second instrument approach to Cape Newenham LRRS Airport (PAEH). During the charter flight from Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport (PANC), weather at PAEH deteriorated from 10 miles visibility under 800-foot ceilings to ¼-mile visibility under a 300-foot overcast. Visibility improved to 3 miles under a broken ceiling as the crew held at the initial approach fix for the RNAV approach to Runway 15. The pilots requested and received clearance for the approach, but after descending to 425 feet on the final segment, reported going missed and requested vectors for another attempt.
The last ADS-B data point showed the airplane on the final approach course at 600 feet. The wreckage was found at an elevation of 610 feet in rising terrain half a mile north of the Runway 15 threshold. The approach procedure gives a minimum descent altitude of 1,320 feet, specifies minimum visibility of 3 miles, and notes that: “Successful go-around improbable if initiated past the MAP,” located about 2.2 miles north of the threshold. A technician stationed at PAEH said that by the time the aircraft began its second approach, he could no longer see the runway from the weather building.
Evidence, including witness marks on rocks and tussock grass, showed the helicopter’s main rotor blades struck the cliff face as it hovered, destroying the rotor. The pilot and a hunting guide, the aircraft’s only other occupant, were killed when the craft fell some 30 meters (100 feet) down the mountainside, coming to rest at an elevation of about 5,700 feet.
The accident occurred during an aerial–assisted trophy hunting trip in which two helicopters tracked game animals, and a hunter and guide would then disembark to shoot. After a chamois shot by one of the hunters fell into a ravine on the north face of Mercury Peak, the accident pilot moved the hunter and passengers to a flat area nearby and returned to the ravine to recover the carcass. The pilot brought the helicopter to a hover next to a rocky ledge, and the rotor blades hit the rocks as the guide tried to climb out through the left front cabin door.
Investigators were unable to pinpoint the origin of an apparent electrical fire that began shortly after takeoff and caused a cascade of crew alerts and warnings, intermittent losses of radio communications, and increasing difficulty controlling the aircraft during an attempted emergency landing. Fire subsequently consumed most of the fuselage and the inboard portions of both wings after the airplane touched down short of Runway 25 at Jamestown Airport (KJHW), causing serious injuries to the pilot and minor injuries to the copilot. No passengers were on board for the Part 91 business flight, which was intended to bring a mechanic and parts for another company aircraft from Florida’s Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport (KFXE) to their base at Chautauqua County Dunkirk Airport (KDKK) in Dunkirk, New York.
Within two minutes of takeoff, the copilot reported a smell of smoke that initially dissipated but then became unmistakable. Crew alerting system (CAS) messages began immediately afterward, and the pilots diverted to KJHW. The flight instruments showed “red Xs” as the CAS displayed increasing numbers of warnings regarding the electrical system; trim control was compromised as the jet descended through 10,000 feet.
The copilot recalled hearing the pitch trim “clacker” as the jet trimmed nose-down and accelerated to “well over 250 knots.” After a 270-degree turn to align with the runway, the pilot could not fully extend the flaps and had difficulty slowing the airplane, which “dropped” short of the runway and hit the ground hard. The last ADS-B report showed a ground speed of 150 knots at an altitude of 1,650 feet. Neither witnesses nor surveillance cameras saw any smoke from the airplane.
The airplane was not equipped with a flight data recorder. Investigators found “heavy thermal damage” in the engine control system wiring harnesses, but the lack of “engine controllability issues” suggested this was unlikely to be the source of the fire. Likewise, there was “heavy thermal damage” in the area of the number two battery, but evidence indicated arcing had begun outside the battery case. Investigators concluded that “the fire likely originated in the lower portion of the airplane, aft of the rear pressure bulkhead” but were unable to determine the exact location.
After making a 180-degree turn at the end of Runway 12 in the darkness, the pilot of the Royal Flying Doctor Service King Air mistakenly aligned the airplane with the runway edge lights instead of the centerline before beginning the takeoff roll. The nose gear struck a turn pad edge light, and fragments damaged both propellers and dented the fuselage. The pilot aborted the takeoff and returned to the ramp after hearing a bang and recognizing the misalignment. There were no injuries.
The accident occurred three minutes after midnight on a night described as “dark with little moonlight [and] low cloud, but otherwise good visibility.”
One doctor and one nurse were on board for the planned flight to Bundaberg. The 9,794-hour commercial pilot reported having mistaken the runway edge lights for centerline lights, a feature the Wellcamp Airport does not have. The Queensland Section of the Royal Flying Doctor Service revised its operations manual in response.
Inadequate preflight planning, a cursory inspection, and an attempt to take off above the Citation V’s mtow with snow-contaminated wings kept the airplane from rotating at its calculated speed, the NTSB determined in a final report on the Dec. 27, 2024 runway overrun at Stevens Field Airport (KPSO) in Pagosa Springs, Colorado. By the time the pilot rejected the takeoff, the airplane had already passed decision speed.
The light jet ran off the end of Runway 1 and damaged both wings in the grass beyond the pavement. The two pilots and eight passengers were not injured.
The pilot held a type rating that required a qualified second-in-command, but the copilot did not hold an SIC rating and, by his own account, did not meet the requirements to serve in that role. The pilot told investigators she knew he lacked type experience but assumed he was properly trained because of his job with a flight-simulator training provider.
The lease agreement for the airplane required the lessee, a passenger aboard the flight, to hire “professionally trained and qualified” pilots. But according to the lessee, the management company that operated the airplane, Metroplex Flight Services, arranged the pilots itself and asked only for a passenger count—never passenger or baggage weights.
The pilot calculated weight using ForeFlight’s standard average passenger weights for the five men, four women, and one child aboard, plus an estimated 130 pounds of baggage in the rear compartment and 110 pounds in the nose—arriving at a calculated payload of 1,285 pounds. Bag weights were determined by “heaviness,” not scales, according to the NTSB.
The pilot told investigators the airplane’s takeoff weight was about 15,900 pounds, equal to mtow. After the accident, investigators calculated the airplane’s actual takeoff weight at about 16,502 pounds, with the center of gravity likely outside the operating envelope.
The pilot said her preflight inspection found only liquid water on the wings, with no ice or other contamination. But airport surveillance video showed snow already accumulating as the pilots walked out to the airplane and continuing to fall as passengers boarded. One passenger said FBO personnel, working with a handheld brush because the airport lacked deicing capability, cleared the wings three times over about 11 minutes.
The copilot said the pilot performed a tactile check of the wings after boarding was complete, but video showed no such check on the right wing—the only one visible on camera—after the final snow removal.
Contamination remained visible on the wings as the airplane taxied, the ramp pavement was wet, and the snowfall rate appeared to increase once the airplane left the ramp. About 20 minutes elapsed between the last snow removal and the start of the takeoff roll.
A post-accident examination found no evidence of pre-accident flight-control or engine anomalies that would have precluded normal operation.
—Amy Wilder contributed to this report
Business Aircraft Accident Reports: November 2026 – Aviation International News
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