Simmons Airlines Embraer 135 incident
Embraer 135 · Incident: airframe, component or system failure during initial climb
From Bangor International Airport (KBGR) to Boston Logan International Airport (KBOS)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's location. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- DCA04IA018
- 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
- Incident
- 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
- Airline
- 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
Embraer 135
- Aircraft type
- Embraer 135
- 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
- N734EK
- Operator
- Simmons Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Bangor International Airport (KBGR), Bangor, METo Boston Logan International Airport (KBOS), Boston, MA
- 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 121: Air Carrier
- 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
- 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
- Minor
Cause areas
- Flt control syst, rudder control cable/rod › Failure
- Flt control syst, rudder control cable/rod › Worn
Not plotted · Location withheld: coordinates are missing, conflicting, invalid, or have no accepted acquisition method. No substitute location has been invented.
NTSB narrative
American Eagle Embraer 135, N734EK, experienced an uncommanded rudder deflection after takeoff from Bangor, Maine. The flight crew returned to Bangor and landed the airplane uneventfully. There were 35 passengers and 3 crew members on board. Inspection of the airplane after the incident revealed a failed rudder interconnect rod. Examination of the failed components in the NTSB Materials Lab revealed that the internal threads of the interconnect rod were worn.
Probable cause
Severe wear of the internal threads of the rudder interconnection contol rod which led to disengagement.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DCA04IA018
- Event ID
- 20040528X00692
- Case number
- DCA04IA018
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (5)
- 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: 165e8e9c9105763915367fa0d86662ab7be613e26e9da1872f4d7a82e24d06b8; retrieved 2026-09-18T15:31:27.716Z.
- Corrected after a review of the NTSB narrative, which states these values explicitly: departure. The narrative states the rudder deflection occurred "after takeoff from Bangor, Maine"; KBGR is in Maine, not Massachusetts.