On May 30, 1979, the de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter operating the flight crashed during a nonprecision approach to Rockland's Knox County Regional Airport.

[3] At the time of the crash, the crew had descended the Twin Otter below the minimum descent altitude in order to see the runway in heavy fog.

[3][4] Fog was extremely common at Knox County Regional Airport because of its position on a peninsula in Penobscot Bay.

[3] Originally, Stenger flew, refueled and loaded passenger luggage onto the aircraft, and his wife would sell tickets.

[3] As the airline grew, he hired more pilots and acquired more equipment, but found himself ill-prepared to manage staff.

[3] In addition, the airline had trouble recruiting pilots with experience of flying in the bad weather frequently found in Maine.

[4] Retired Rockland Police Chief Alfred Ockenfels, who flew for Downeast, said, "Stenger was a guy that didn't suffer fools gladly; he barked at you...but he never told anyone to go below the [altitude] minimums."

[3] Around the time of the crash, several senior pilots had left the company due to Stenger's management style.

In addition to the high fuel flow and oil temperature in the right engine, the aircraft had poor cockpit lighting at night.

There was no formal record of the altimeter problem in the aircraft's logbooks, but investigators were told that it had been checked during an inspection in the past with no defects found.