MIA93LA185 · Keuthan BUCCANEER II BUCCANEER
Keuthan BUCCANEER II BUCCANEER · Accident: airframe, component or system failure during initial climb
From Merritt Island Airport (COI) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA93LA185
- 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
- Accident
- 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
- General aviation
- 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
Keuthan BUCCANEER II BUCCANEER
- Aircraft type
- Keuthan BUCCANEER
- 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
- N693KA
- Operator
- Keuthan, Charles J. · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Merritt Island Airport (COI)To not recorded
- 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 91: General Aviation
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Company maintenance personnel › Maintenance, installation, improper
- Flt control syst, elevator control cable/rod › Disconnected
- Flt control syst, elevator control cable/rod › Not secured
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE AIRCRAFT HAD JUST BEEN REPAIRED AFTER RECEIVING TORNADO DAMAGE. THIS REPAIR INCLUDED REMOVAL AND REPLACEMENT OF THE ELEVATOR CONTROL TUBE. THE PILOT TAXIED TO THE RUNWAY FOR THE PURPOSE OF A TEST FLIGHT. ALL FLIGHT CONTROL CHECKS APPEARED NORMAL. AFTER LIFT-OFF, THE PILOT INTENDED TO LEVEL OFF AT 5 TO 10 FEET, THEN TOUCH DOWN AGAIN. HOWEVER, AFTER THE AIRPLANE BECAME AIRBORNE, HE LOST ELEVATOR CONTROL, AND THE AIRCRAFT CLIMBED STEEPLY TO 50 TO 75 FEET. THE PILOT THEN REDUCED POWER, THE AIRCRAFT'S NOSE DROPPED, AND THE AIRCRAFT DESCENDED. WITH NO ELEVATOR CONTROL, THE PILOT WAS UNABLE TO ARREST THE DESCENT, AND THE AIRCRAFT IMPACTED THE GROUND. A POST-CRASH EXAMINATION REVEALED THAT A BOLT AND NUT WERE MISSING FROM THE ELEVATOR CONTROL LINKAGE, WHICH ALLOWED THE LINKAGE TO BECOME DISCONNECTED.
Probable cause
FAILURE OF MAINTENANCE PERSONNEL TO PROPERLY REINSTALL A BOLT AND NUT IN THE ELEVATOR CONTROL LINKAGE, WHICH RESULTED IN A DISCONNECT OF THE LINKAGE AND LOSS OF ELEVATOR CONTROL.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA93LA185
- Event ID
- 20001211X13208
- Case number
- MIA93LA185
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (4)
- 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. 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: 253aa322e1906a241e1314b5a358a33e744c919d92ad261289f6b58e5b62f4c1; retrieved 2026-09-21T14:09:52.758Z.