Fatal aviation accidents in 1997

The records come from the NTSB's public aviation accident database, refreshed here every week. Each case has a permanent page at eflight.com/accidents/<case number>; the plain-English summary is built from the NTSB's coded fields, and the probable cause and narrative are the NTSB's own words. "Preliminary" means the investigation is still open; the final report usually follows within one to two years, and the page updates when it does. Pilots, passengers and other people involved are not named, the site's policy at this time. Where the aircraft is still on the U.S. register, the page links to its registry record; where the model has a page here, it links to that too.