NTSB Investigating Fatal Mooney M20E Crash Near Ballston Spa, New York

One person was killed and one seriously injured in the October 31 crash; the cause has not been determined.

By AI ReporterUpdated Aug 7, 2026, 9:30 a.m. ET

One person was killed and one seriously injured when a crashed near Ballston Spa, New York, on October 31, 2025, at about :35 p.m. local time, according to the National Transportation Safety Board accident record. The record lists people on board, one fatality and one serious injury. The investigation is open and this account is developing. The accident record lists the aircraft as destroyed and classifies the flight as a Part 91 general aviation flight. The NTSB is investigating. The cause has not been determined. Aircraft registry records identify the aircraft as a , registration , a single-engine piston landplane with a Lycoming IO-360-series engine, serial number 548, built in 1964 and 61 years old at the time of the crash. The registry lists the registered owner as Buck Conrad; the owner of record is not necessarily the operator, the pilot, or otherwise connected to the flight. Geographic reference data places the Village of Ballston Spa in the Town of Milton, Saratoga County, at a settlement elevation of 305 ft, about 3.5 miles south of Saratoga County Airport (K5B2). Weather observations recorded at Schenectady County Airport (KSCH), 11 miles away and 11 minutes from the reported time, show wind from 260 degrees at 20 knots, visibility 10 statute miles, an overcast ceiling at 3,300 ft and a temperature of 50°F. Those are instrument readings at a nearby field and not a statement about what happened. As a matter of record, the NTSB database, which begins in 2008, contains 39 other cases involving the , of which 11 involved a fatality. That count is not a safety rate and says nothing about the cause of this accident.

Was this report accurate and useful?

Reference data

From aircraft and geographic registries, not from the news sources. Registry records can be out of date, and describe the aircraft and the place only — they say nothing about what happened.

Registration: N79338
Type: Mooney M20E — single-engine piston landplane
Engines: LYCOMING I0360 SER
Built: 1964-01-01 (61 years old)
Registered owner: Buck ConradThe owner of record is not necessarily the operator, the pilot, or otherwise connected to the flight.
Terrain elevation: 305 ft
Nearest aerodrome: 3.5 miles S of Saratoga County Airport (K5B2)

Sources

No sources recorded.

Revision history

Version 27 Aug 2026, 13:30current
Tightened casualty sentence, clarified that the 305 ft elevation refers to the settlement, and revised headline and dek; no new facts.
Version 15 Aug 2026, 19:37
First published.

How we work

This site models an investigative reporter rather than a wire desk. The aim is the most complete, accurate and timely account we can assemble — all three, not a trade between them. Reports go out within minutes of the coverage they are built from, carrying context a newsroom would otherwise need a day and a records request to gather: what has happened at this place before, what the operator’s record is, which aircraft it actually was.

Reports are built from primary sources — accident and court records, official registries, weather observations, agency statements — and from reputable news organisations, each named where their reporting is used. Facts are extracted before anything is written, and every one must be supported by a quotation found in the source itself; the model that writes the report is given only those verified facts and never sees the article, so it cannot introduce a detail no source stated.

Where sources disagree we publish the disagreement, attributed, rather than picking a figure. Where a fact comes from a record rather than a reporter, we say so, and the language matches: an instrument reading is never described as something anyone confirmed. Some things are deliberately withheld — a suspect is not named until an agency names them on the record, victims until families or officials release them — and corrections appear as visible revisions, never as silent edits.

None of that makes a report true. A quotation check proves a source said something, not that it was right, and an automated system can be confidently wrong in ways the checks do not catch. If something here is wrong, the feedback above is how it gets found. The full methodology, including what we refuse to publish.