South Pacific Island de Havilland DHC-6-300 accident
de Havilland DHC-6-300 · Accident: airframe, component or system failure on approach
From Pago Pago International Airport (PPG) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX84FA415
- 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
- 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
de Havilland DHC-6-300
- Aircraft type
- de Havilland DHC-6
- 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
- N43SP
- Operator
- South Pacific Island
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Pago Pago International Airport (PPG), PAGO PAGO,SAMOATo 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 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
- Approach · VFR pattern base
- 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
- Flt control syst, elevator control › Corroded
- Flt control syst, elevator control › Failure, total
Not plotted · Location withheld: coordinates are missing, conflicting, invalid, or have no accepted acquisition method. No substitute location has been invented.
NTSB narrative
THE ACFT CRASH LANDED AFTER THE PLT USED FLAPS AND POWER TO SEMI-CONTROL PITCH AFTER THE ELEVATOR DOWN CONTROL CABLE FAILED AT ABOUT 300 FT AGL ON FINAL APPROACH. THE LEFT WING OF THE ACFT HIT THE TERMINAL ROOF DURING THE STALL MUSH FROM50 FT AGL. THE COMPANY IS CHANGING THEIR ACFT CONTROL CABLES FROM STEEL TO STAINLESS STEEL TO AID IN THE ANTI-CORROSION AND MODIFYING THEIR INSPECTION PERIOD FROM 800 TO 100 HOURS BETWEEN INSPECTIONS. THE CABLE THAT SEPARATED FAILED FROM CORROSION. NO EVIDENCE OF FATIGUE CRACKING OR MECHANICAL WEAR WAS FOUND. CORROSION PRODUCTS WERE FOUND WITHIN 2 INCHES OF THE SERAPATION ON BOTH CABLE PIECES.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX84FA415
- Event ID
- 20001214X40348
- Case number
- LAX84FA415
- 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: 5911cf21dd900554d7c024d9cf2effc76277ba8fcc6ecc2d179ee41f7c7391ed; retrieved 2026-09-18T14:27:58.364Z.