Passengers 2 Survivors 2 Date 3 January 1992 Survivor 2 Crew count 2 | Fatalities 2 Aircraft type Beechcraft 1900C Number of deaths 2 Passenger count 2 Location New York | |
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Summary loss of control on approach Site near Gabriels, New York Similar Mandala Airlines Flight 660, Merpati Nusantara Airlines Fl, China General Aviation F, Aerolíneas Argentinas Flight 386, 1992 Nigerian Air Force | ||
On Friday, January 3, 1992, CommutAir Flight 4281 crashed while conducting an ILS approach to Runway 23 at the Adirondack Regional Airport, Flight 4821 crashed into a wooded hillside near Gabriels, New York. There were two people killed in the crash, and two survivors.
Contents
Accident
Flight 4821 was a regularly scheduled early morning USAir Express flight from Plattsburgh, New York, to Newark, New Jersey, with intermediate stops in Saranac Lake and Albany, New York. The crew for Flight 4281 were Captain Kevin St. Germain, 30, and First Officer Dean Montana, 23. There were two passengers on board, one of which was a CommutAir employee.
During the descent into Saranc Lake, the crew descended below the glide slope and crashed into a hill at 5:45am. First Officer Montana and the company employee passenger were killed. Captain St. Germain and the other passenger survived the crash.
Investigation
The NTSB blamed the pilots for the crash. Captain St. Germain failed to stabilize the approach, cross check the instruments, and descended below the minimum altitude. First Officer Montana failed to monitor the approach. The contributing factors to the crash were weather and possible precipitation static interference, which could have caused unreliable glide slope indications.