NTSB Identification: ERA17FA011
On October 11, 2016, about 1530 eastern daylight time, a Piper PA-34-200 twin-engine airplane, N15294, was destroyed when it impacted terrain near Hartford-Brainard Airport (HFD), Hartford, Connecticut. The flight instructor was seriously injured, and the private pilot was fatally injured. The airplane was registered to International Aviation, LLC, and operated by American Flight Academy as a 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 91 instructional flight. Visual meteorological conditions existed at the airport at the time of the accident, and no flight plan was filed for the local flight that departed HFD about an hour earlier.
The investigation of this event is being conducted under the jurisdiction of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The NTSB provided requested technical assistance to the FBI, and any material generated by the NTSB is under the control of the FBI. The NTSB does not plan to issue a report or open a public docket.
Thanks for the link.
It could be the NTSB wants to minimize the exposure of this story, at the prodding of another agency of government (FBI). I wouldn’t rule that out.
Since it wasn’t a mechanical failure or the traditional kind of pilot error, most of the tools of investigation they use are moot. There is no mystery to what happened, especially since there is eyewitness testimony (the surviving instructor).
They are probably wary of appearing to weigh in politically, so instead they choose not to issue a full report. It’s a “criminal investigation” not an accident investigation, in their view. Not their problem.