NYC93FA044 · Beech 18T
Mohican Air Service Beech 18T · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From Cleveland Hopkins International Airport (CLE) to Syracuse Hancock International Airport (SYR)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC93FA044
- 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
- 1 · 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
Beech 18T
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 18
- 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
- N706M
- Operator
- Mohican Air Service
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Cleveland Hopkins International Airport (CLE)To Syracuse Hancock International Airport (SYR), Syracuse, NY
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Company maintenance personnel › Maintenance, inspection, not performed
- Company maintenance personnel › Maintenance, installation, improper
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Cleveland, OH, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
AFTER ROTATION, DURING THE INITIAL CLIMB, THE NOSE OF THE AIRPLANE PITCHED UP TO APPROXIMATELY 60 DEGREES ABOVE THE HORIZON. THE AIRPLANE CONTINUED TO CLIMB UNTIL ABOUT 250 FEET ABOVE THE GROUND, THEN ROLLED RIGHT, PITCHED DOWN AND DESCENDED. THE AIRPLANE IMPACTED THE GROUND, APPROXIMATELY 45 DEGREES NOSE DOWN, 650 FEET TO THE RIGHT OF THE RUNWAY. POST ACCIDENT INVESTIGATION OF THE WRECKAGE REVEALED THE ELEVATOR JAMMED IN THE FULL UP DEFLECTION. THE UPPER END OF THE ELEVATOR CONTROL ROD WAS FOUND NOT CONNECTED TO THE ELEVATOR, BUT WAS FOUND LAYING AFT, WEDGED BETWEEN THE TAIL CONE AND THE ELEVATOR FARING, HOLDING THE ELEVATOR IN THE FULL UP POSITION. THE CONTROL ROD CONNECTING BOLT WAS FOUND LAYING IN THE BOTTOM OF THE TAIL CONE UNDAMAGED. THE WASHER, NUT AND COTTER PIN RELATED TO THE CONTROL ROD CONNECTING BOLT WERE NOT FOUND. THE ELEVATOR HAD BEEN REMOVED, RECOVERED AND THEN INSTALLED BY COMPANY MAINTENANCE PERSONNEL 166 FLIGHT HOURS PRIOR TO THE ACCIDENT.
Probable cause
THE IMPROPER INSTALLATION OF THE ELEVATOR BY COMPANY MAINTENANCE PERSONNEL AND THE LACK OF PROPER INSPECTIONS BY A COMPANY CERTIFIED MECHANIC/INSPECTOR AND THE FAA CERTIFIED MECHANIC WITH INSPECTOR AUTHORIZATION. A FACTOR IN THIS ACCIDENT WAS AN INSUFFICIENTLY DEFINED MAINTENANCE PROCEDURES THAT ALLOWED MULTIPLE MAINTENANCE TASKS TO BE COMBINED INTO A SINGLE LINE ENTRY.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC93FA044
- Event ID
- 20001211X16217
- Case number
- NYC93FA044
- 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: 0d65b612e12ccc40dcb7bbc449503ace379fe1b8839bd3c73ff9ae51729798bd; retrieved 2026-09-21T00:46:01.017Z.