NYC07IA194 · Piper PA-44-180
Piper PA-44-180 · Incident: airframe, component or system failure during initial climb
From Coastal Carolina Regional Airport (EWN) to Coastal Carolina Regional Airport (EWN)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC07IA194
- 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-44-180
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-44
- 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
- N30521
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Coastal Carolina Regional Airport (EWN), New Bern, NCTo Coastal Carolina Regional Airport (EWN), New Bern, NC
- 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
- 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, stabilator control › Stress corrosion
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During initial climb, the certified flight instructor (CFI) noticed very little resistance from the stabilator; however, he was able to land the airplane uneventfully using stabilator trim. Examination of the airplane revealed that the stabilator control cable turnbuckle terminal fitting had failed due to corrosion. The National Transportation Safety Board had issued a recommendation to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), more than 6 years prior to the incident. The Safety Board recommended that the FAA issue an airworthiness directive (AD) to require recurrent visual inspections for evidence of corrosion on control cable terminals, and the inspections should be performed after removal of any safety wire or safety clips on the terminals. At that time, the airplane manufacturer had committed to revising its maintenance manuals to include similar instruction. At the time of the incident, the airplane manufacturer had issued a service letter, but had not yet updated their maintenance manuals; and the FAA had issued a non-mandatory Special Airworthiness Information Bulletin in lieu of an AD. A mechanic performed an annual inspection of the incident airplane, and returned it to service, 21 days prior to the incident. The mechanic stated that he inspected the incident airplane's control cables for damage during its recent annual inspection; however, he believed he missed the corrosion on the turnbuckle terminal fitting due to a safety wire that covered it. The mechanic added that when he performed the annual inspection he was not aware of a manufacturer service letter or an FAA SAIB regarding the inspection for corrosion.
Probable cause
A failure of the stabilator control cable turnbuckle terminal fitting due to corrosion. Contributing to the accident were the mechanic's inadequate annual inspection, and the aircraft manufacturer's failure to provide adequate information in its maintenance manuals regarding the inspection of control cable terminals for corrosion.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC07IA194
- Event ID
- 20070903X01298
- Case number
- NYC07IA194
- 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: a0e50adbbfb935c1d2f6f5c41a033d88592da6a28f57fa4f45dbe79f0cc97599; retrieved 2026-09-22T03:31:04.239Z.