On Friday, January 3, 1992, a Beechcraft 1900 operating CommutAir Flight 4821 crashed into a wooded hillside near

Gabriels, New York Gabriels is a hamlet in the town of Brighton in Franklin County, New York, United States, inside the Adirondack Park near Paul Smiths. The village developed around a tuberculosis cure facility, the Gabriels Sanatorium, which was opened in 1897 by ...

while conducting an ILS approach to Runway 23 at the

Adirondack Regional Airport Adirondack Regional Airport is a public use airport located four nautical miles (5 mi, 7 km) northwest of the central business district of Saranac Lake, in Franklin County, New York, United States. The airport is owned by the ...

. The cause of the accident was determined to be pilot error. There were two people killed in the crash, and two survivors.

Accident

Flight 4821 was a regularly scheduled early morning USAir Express flight from

Plattsburgh, New York Plattsburgh ( moh, Tsi ietsénhtha) is a city in, and the seat of, Clinton County, New York, United States, situated on the north-western shore of Lake Champlain. The population was 19,841 at the 2020 census. The population of the surroundin ...

, to

Newark, New Jersey Newark ( , ) is the List of municipalities in New Jersey, most populous City (New Jersey), city in the U.S. state of New Jersey and the county seat, seat of Essex County, New Jersey, Essex County and the second largest city within the New Yo ...

, with intermediate stops in

Saranac Lake Saranac Lake may refer to: * Saranac Lake, New York, a village in the northern Adirondacks *One of the three nearby Saranac Lakes, part of the Saranac River: **Upper Saranac Lake **Middle Saranac Lake **Lower Saranac Lake Note: There is no lake nam ...

and

Albany, New York Albany ( ) is the capital of the U.S. state of New York, also the seat and largest city of Albany County. Albany is on the west bank of the Hudson River, about south of its confluence with the Mohawk River, and about north of New York Ci ...

. 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 an off-duty CommutAir employee. Shortly before the crash occurred, the aircraft had contacted CommutAir officials on the ground at Lake Clear Airport. During the descent into Saranac 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 with injuries.

Investigation

The aircraft was new and the crew was experienced. Immediately following the accident, there was no clear cause. The aircraft was not required to be equipped with a

flight data recorder A flight recorder is an electronic recording device placed in an aircraft for the purpose of facilitating the investigation of aviation accidents and incidents. The device may often be referred to as a "black box", an outdated name which has b ...

(FDR), therefore, a flight data recorder was not present. The aircraft was equipped with a

cockpit voice recorder A flight recorder is an electronic recording device placed in an aircraft for the purpose of facilitating the investigation of aviation accidents and incidents. The device may often be referred to as a "black box", an outdated name which has b ...

(CVR) but it was burned to the point that the data inside were not usable. The

National Transportation Safety Board The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is an independent U.S. government investigative agency responsible for civil transportation accident investigation. In this role, the NTSB investigates and reports on aviation accidents and inci ...

(NTSB) used aircraft position data from air traffic control, the aircraft wreckage, survivor interviews, and weather information to find its probable cause. 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.

References

{{Aviation accidents and incidents in 1992 Accidents and incidents involving the Beechcraft 1900 Aviation accidents and incidents in the United States in 1992 Airliner accidents and incidents in New York (state) Airliner accidents and incidents caused by pilot error 1992 in New York (state) January 1992 events in the United States