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SEA07LA152 · Dassault-Breguet Mystere Falcon 900

10 Jun 2007 · Santa Barbara, CA, United States

Trishan Air Dassault-Breguet Mystere Falcon 900 · Accident: overrun during takeoff

From Santa Barbara Municipal Airport (SBA) to Tampa International Airport (TPA)

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Event

NTSB case
SEA07LA152
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

Dassault-Breguet Mystere Falcon 900

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
N914DD
Operator
Trishan Air
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From Santa Barbara Municipal Airport (SBA), Santa Barbara, CATo Tampa International Airport (TPA), Tampa, 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
Takeoff · rejected takeoff
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
Overrun
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

  • Pilot in command › Performance data, incorrect
  • Pilot in command › Trim setting, improper

Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.

NTSB narrative

The captain supervised the fueling and the weight and balance computations, while the first officer filled out the takeoff and landing distance (TOLD) card; a center of gravity (CG) location was not computed. The first officer entered a takeoff gross weight of 45,400 pounds on the TOLD card, with the V-speeds for that weight entered on the card (V1 116 knots and Vr 129 knots). Post accident calculations revealed that the actual gross takeoff weight was 46,481 pounds and the CG was 15.73% of mean aerodynamic chord (MAC), which was within the maximum gross takeoff weight and center of gravity limits of 46,500 pounds and 14 to 31% MAC, respectively. The V-speeds for the actual gross weight are V1 118 knots and Vr 131 knots. The crew set the stabilizer trim at -5.5 degrees, which is in the takeoff range, from -4.5 degrees to -7.5 degrees. The -4.5 degree position is labeled "AFT" and is the right position for aft CG locations, while the -7.5 degree position is labeled "FWD" and is the right position for forward CG locations. For the airplane’s calculated CG of 15.73% MAC, the right setting for the stabilizer trim should have been between -7 and -7.5 degrees. The captain said that everything was normal in the takeoff. The first officer called V1, followed by Vr, at which time he pulled back on the yoke, but with no response. When the speed was well into the upper 130-knot range he relaxed the yoke, then pulled aft again, and again there was no response from the airplane. The captain aborted the takeoff and the airplane came to rest 580 feet off the end of the runway, after impacting a berm. A post accident inspection of the airplane revealed that all systems were operating within allowable tolerances. Post accident simulator testing revealed that when configured for takeoff in the accident conditions, stabilizer trim set to -5.5 degrees and V speeds set for 45,400 pounds, a delay of 2 to 4 seconds was noted from the time an up elevator input was made to the time the airplane reacted in pitch. When the simulator was configured with the stabilizer trim set to -7.0 degrees and the V speeds set for 46,480 pounds, there was no delay in airplane response to elevator input.

Probable cause

The erroneous gross weight calculation and improper trim setting by the captain, which resulted in the airplane's failure to rotate at Vr as expected and the captain's decision to perform to a high speed aborted takeoff.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record SEA07LA152
Event ID
20070616X00749
Case number
SEA07LA152
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. 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: 20357933c74079ba89932c0b3197fadf230068ea36a452e0acde5c1ea857a4f8; retrieved 2026-09-22T03:46:01.476Z.