FTW03LA115 · Cessna FA150K
Cessna FA150K · Accident: airframe, component or system failure while maneuvering
From EYQ · Houston, TX to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW03LA115
- 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
Cessna FA150K
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 150
- 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
- N922SZ
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From EYQ · Houston, TXTo 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
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Elevator trim › Not possible
- Flt control syst, elevator trim/tab control › Separation
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While recovering from a steep spiral from 3,000 feet msl to 1,000 feet msl, the pilot felt a shudder in the yoke. Utilizing power adjustments, the 496-hour pilot landed the airplane without further incident. Examination of the airplane revealed that the trim tab and hinge had separated from the right elevator. The right stabilizer was bent upward, the trim tab actuator was found loose in the mount, the rivet holes where the trim tab attached to the elevator, were deformed. Examination of the trim tab actuator revealed black electrical tape wrapped around the trim tab actuator body in the area under each clamp. The trim tab was not found. The rivet holes on the elevator exhibited deformation consistent with the trim tab separation pulling the rivet heads through the elevator skin. The part numbers for the trim tab actuator and clamps (AN742D13) were consistent with manufacturers part numbers. When the clamps were closed and the inside diameter measured, one clamp measured .842 inch and the other measured .860 inch in diameter. The Air Force -Aeronautical Standard for the AN742D13 clamp indicated the diameter to be .813 inch. The investigation was not able to determine when the electrical tape was placed on the actuator. The last annual inspection was performed on November 5, 2002, at accumulated aircraft time of 7,708.04 hours.
Probable cause
The in-flight separation of the elevator trim tab.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW03LA115
- Event ID
- 20030325X00387
- Case number
- FTW03LA115
- 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: 3dd375ea0ba7ac5eb08d9a463c0e0d82f4f9a7389a4d92e6430d2379eab5d43f; retrieved 2026-09-22T09:29:11.026Z.