Ameriflight Flight 1894
Fairchild SA-227AC · Incident: airframe, component or system failure during initial climb
From Oakland San Francisco Bay Airport (OAK) to Reno Tahoe International Airport (RNO)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX95IA027
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Incident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Completed
- API-reported fatalities
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- Charter & commuter
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Fairchild SA-227AC
- Aircraft type
- Fairchild SA-227
- Category
- Airplane
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- N191AF
- Operator
- Ameriflight
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Oakland San Francisco Bay Airport (OAK)To Reno Tahoe International Airport (RNO), Reno, NV
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- Initial climb
- First occurrenceThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Airframe, component or system failure
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- None
Cause areas
- Company maintenance personnel › Maintenance, installation, improper
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Oakland, CA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT EXPERIENCED A LOSS OF AILERON CONTROL SHORTLY AFTER TAKEOFF. THE PILOT RETURNED TO THE AIRPORT AND LANDED WITHOUT FURTHER INCIDENT. EXAMINATION OF THE AIRPLANE REVEALED THE CABLE BROKE NEAR ITS 90-DEGREE ATTACH PULLEYS. THE SAFETY BOARD MATERIALS LABORATORY CONDUCTED A METALLURGICAL EXAMINATION OF THE CABLE'S FRACTURED SURFACES. THE EXAMINATION REVEALED THE CABLE SEPARATED DUE TO HIGH-STRESS/LOW-CYCLE FATIGUE CRACKING. MOST WIRE ENDS IN THE VICINITY OF THE SEPARATION WERE SEVERELY BENT. SUCH DAMAGE WOULD MOST LIKELY BE PRODUCED BY A KINK IN THE CABLE. A CABLE KINK CREATES VERY HIGH TENSILE STRESSES ALONG THE OUTSIDE OF THE KINK AND WOULD GENERATE PREMATURE HIGH-STRESS FATIGUE CRACKING. THE 15 HOURS OF TIME SINCE INSTALLATION IS CONSISTENT WITH SOME SORT OF SEVERE CONDITION SUCH AS A KINK. THE MECHANIC MOST LIKELY INSTALLED THE CABLE WITH ONE END TWISTED COMPARED WITH THE OTHER END.
Probable cause
the company maintenance personnel's improper installation of the aileron cable.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX95IA027
- Event ID
- 20001206X02461
- Case number
- LAX95IA027
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (5)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: investigation status, damage. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 095926d5f5b9d52604b9aa922b56f12e05ee78f317327543ca9f3c30d36aa24d; retrieved 2026-09-18T18:06:55.740Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N191AF; the operator shown is the name the NTSB's other records give its FAA operator code, JIKA.