MIA05IA132 · Piper PA-34-220T
Piper PA-34-220T · Incident: airframe, component or system failure during landing
From Vero Beach Regional Airport (KVRB) to Space Coast Regional Airport (KTIX)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA05IA132
- 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
- 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
Piper PA-34-220T
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-34
- 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
- N700VR
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Vero Beach Regional Airport (KVRB), Vero Beach, FLTo Space Coast Regional Airport (KTIX), Titusville, FL
- 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
- Landing · flare/touchdown
- 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
- Pilot in command › Operation with known deficiencies in equipment, continued
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the pilot, the airplane touched down on the runway on all landing gears, bounced slightly, then touched down on the nose landing gear causing it to collapse. On short final approach when the airplane was approximately 10-15 feet above the runway, the pilot applied nose-up pitch trim to counter the nose-heavy tendency of the airplane but the pitch trim continued to operate in the nose-up direction despite his release of the pitch trim switch. He applied power and forward pressure on the control yoke. Postaccident examination of the electric pitch trim system revealed the rocker switches would intermittently stick in either the nose-up or nose-down position. Testing and disassembly of the pilot's electric pitch trim switch revealed the unit tested satisfactory electrically, but intermittent mechanical sticking in either the nose-up or nose-down direction was noted. Dirt/grime was noted near the rocker switch assembly. Examination of both rocker switches revealed the hole (pivot point) in 1 of the 2 was .001 less than the minimum specification. The pitch trim servo operationally tested satisfactory. Since purchase by the pilot approximately 2 months earlier, he accumulated approximately 20 hours and noted that during the last 2 or 3 flights, or a total of 8 or 9 times, the pitch trim continued in the direction of application when using the pitch trim switch on the pilot's control yoke. He corrected this by moving the control yoke opposite the direction of the travel of the trim, and also by moving the pilot's pitch trim switch opposite the initial application direction. Of the 8 or 9 times, the trim continued in the nose-down direction 6 times, and in the nose-up direction 2 or 3 times. He did not have a mechanic inspect the electric pitch trim system to determine the cause of the trim continuing in the direction of application, and on the day of the accident when the airplane was at an avionics shop to have work performed, he did mention to any personnel the issue related to the pitch trim.
Probable cause
The pilot's continued operation of the airplane with known intermittent deficiencies of the electric pitch trim switch, resulting in a mis-trim condition of the airplane (nose-up), and subsequent hard landing on the nose landing gear causing it to collapse. A factor in the accident was the failure of the electric pitch trim switch to return to the neutral position after being disengaged due to dirt/grime.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA05IA132
- Event ID
- 20050714X01018
- Case number
- MIA05IA132
- 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: 52756cd1c569cdc5bfc73b74c090833214b38df9aaa24d7dc096e5b9b0241940; retrieved 2026-09-22T05:40:38.460Z.