NYC07FA047 · Cessna 310Q
Cessna 310Q · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From Orange County Airport (MGJ) to Morristown Municipal Airport (MMU)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC07FA047
- 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
- 1 · 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 310Q
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 310
- 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
- N8FH
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Orange County Airport (MGJ), Montgomery, NYTo Morristown Municipal Airport (MMU), Morristown, NJ
- 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
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Tree(s)
- 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
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, annual inspection, not verified
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, improper
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The accident flight was the airplane's first flight after an annual inspection was completed. After takeoff, the airplane's pitch oscillated as it climbed approximately 200 to 500 feet agl. The airplane then made a left turn, descended, and impacted trees upright. Review of maintenance records, and an interview with a mechanic that worked on the airplane, revealed that the airplane's elevator trim actuator was removed and replaced as part of the maintenance associated with the annual inspection. In total, four mechanics worked on the airplane, one of which held and inspector authorization (IA), and endorsed the aircraft logbooks at the completion of the annual inspection. Examination of the right horizontal stabilizer revealed that the upper elevator trim cable crossed the lower elevator trim cable as they traveled from the elevator trim actuator, to the pulley located at the center of the empennage. Review of a Cessna Aircraft Company Illustrated Parts Catalog revealed that there should be no crossing of the elevator trim cables traveling from the elevator trim actuator, to the pulley at the center of the empennage. In addition, the elevator trim tab was found in the full (10-degree) nose down position.
Probable cause
Improper maintenance performed on the airplane by maintenance personnel, and the failure of the mechanic with an inspection authorization (IA) to verify the maintenance work performed, which resulted in a reverse elevator trim system, and subsequent loss of control and collision with trees during the initial climb from takeoff.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC07FA047
- Event ID
- 20061221X01825
- Case number
- NYC07FA047
- 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: d75b353365d1522bb9a4cbdc097739cc6979042b5083ce5785ccfc10aaed66ad; retrieved 2026-09-20T16:57:48.442Z.