CHI83FA383 · Cessna 421C
Cessna 421C · Accident: loss of control in flight en route
From Indianapolis International Airport (IND) to Daviess County Airport (DCY)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI83FA383
- 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
Cessna 421C
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 421
- 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
- N386G
- Operator
- M.F.S. Associates
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Indianapolis International Airport (IND), Indianapolis, INTo Daviess County Airport (DCY), Washington, IN
- 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
- En route · climb to cruise
- 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, installation, improper
- Flt control syst, elevator trim/tab control › Incorrect
Not plotted · Location withheld: coordinates are missing, conflicting, invalid, or have no accepted acquisition method. No substitute location has been invented.
NTSB narrative
THE PLT REPORTED THAT DURING A CLIMB AFTER TAKEOFF, HE ENGAGED THE AUTOPILOT. WHILE MAKING AN ENTRY ON A TRIP SHEET, HE FELT A BUMP & NOTED THAT THE ACFT HAD STARTED TO DESCEND. HE DISENGAGED THE AUTOPILOT & THE NOSE PITCHED DOWN VIOLENTLY.REDUCING POWER HAD AN ADVERSE EFFECT, SO HE INCREASED POWER AGAIN. HE FINALLY LEVELED THE ACFT JUST PRIOR TO IMPACTING IN A FIELD AT CRUISE POWER. THE ELEVATOR TRIM TAB CABLES WERE FOUND TO HAVE BEEN CROSSED BETWEEN THE TAB ACTUATOR & THE PULLEY IN THE TAIL CONE. THE TAB WAS ALSO FOUND FULLY TRIMMED NOSE DOWN. THE ACFT HAD JUST BEEN GIVEN AN ANNUAL INSPECTION DURING WHICH THE ELEVATOR TRIM ACTUATOR HAD BEEN REMOVED, INSPECTED & LUBRICATED. THIS WAS THE FIRST FLT SINCE THE INSPECTION.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI83FA383
- Event ID
- 20001214X44040
- Case number
- CHI83FA383
- 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: 64f64c1e4cbe87041fa64f8db7649302fc417ee7691f5cf0d2f90b4093ffcc85; retrieved 2026-09-21T17:50:09.120Z.