CHI01MA163 · Learjet 25D
Avcon Industries Learjet 25D · Accident: airframe, component or system failure while maneuvering
From Newton City-County Airport (EWK) to Salina Municipal Airport (SLN)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI01MA163
- 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
- Unknown
- 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
Learjet 25D
- Aircraft type
- Learjet 25
- 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
- N333CG
- Operator
- Avcon Industries
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Newton City-County Airport (EWK), Newton, KSTo Salina Municipal Airport (SLN), Salina, KS
- 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
- Maneuvering
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Flt control syst, elevator control cable/rod › Fatigue
- Flt control syst, elevator control › Loss, total
- Flt control syst, elevator control › Oscillation
- Pilot in command › Remedial action, delayed
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During a test flight, the airplane encountered an elevator system oscillation while in a high-speed dive outside the normal operating envelope. The 17 second oscillation was recorded on the cockpit voice recorder and had an average frequency of 28 Hz. The aft elevator sector clevis (p/n 2331510-32) fractured due to reverse bending fatigue caused by vibration, resulting in a complete loss of elevator control. The flight crew reported that pitch control was established by using horizontal stabilizer pitch trim. The flightcrew stated that during final approach to runway 17 (13,337 feet by 200 feet, dry/asphalt) the aircraft's nose began to drop and that the flying pilot was unable to raise the nose using a combination of horizontal stabilizer trim and engine power. The aircraft landed short of the runway, striking an airport perimeter fence and a berm. The surface winds were from the south at 23 knots, gusting to 32 knots.
Probable cause
The PIC's delayed remedial action during the elevator system oscillation, resulting in the failure of the aft elevator sector clevis due to reverse bending fatigue caused by vibration, and subsequent loss of elevator control. Factors contributing to the accident were high and gusting winds, the crosswind, the airport perimeter fence, and the berm.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI01MA163
- Event ID
- 20010619X01204
- Case number
- CHI01MA163
- 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, coordinates. 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: ac0fcc453fceb3699d88a97fb07c1d0122fd5f6ddf1badce278d2fbd9236550b; retrieved 2026-09-21T10:04:52.049Z.