NYC08LA124 · Rockwell 112TCA
Rockwell 112TCA · Accident: runway excursion during takeoff
From Brandywine Regional Airport (OQN) to Warrenton Fauquier Airport (HWY)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC08LA124
- 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
Rockwell 112TCA
- Aircraft type
- Rockwell 112
- 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
- N4623W
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Brandywine Regional Airport (OQN), West Chester, PATo Warrenton Fauquier Airport (HWY), Warrenton, VA
- 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
- Defining eventThe 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
- Runway excursion
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft systems
- Personnel issues › Task performance
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 airplane had just undergone avionics maintenance and was released to the pilot/owner about 30 minutes prior to the accident. According to the technician who conducted the maintenance, the autopilot system operated correctly, and he instructed the pilot to "check his trim before he left, as it runs during ground checks." Prior to engine start, the pilot noticed that the pitch trim was set to the full airplane nose down (AND) position. He reset the trim to the takeoff position, and ensured that the autopilot was off. The pilot reported that during the takeoff roll, the airplane did "not feel right," and he rejected the takeoff. The airplane overran the 3,347 foot-long, dry, asphalt runway, traveled down an embankment, and came to rest in a shallow ditch. Post-accident examination and testing of the airplane elevator and pitch trim system by an FAA inspector confirmed elevator and manual pitch trim control continuity, and the controls were observed to be functional and directionally correct. The electric pitch trim and cockpit pitch trim indicator were also observed to be functional and directionally correct. One witness reported that about 10 minutes elapsed from the time that the airplane was pulled from the maintenance hangar to when the pilot reported the accident.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to ensure that the pitch trim was properly set for takeoff.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC08LA124
- Event ID
- 20080320X00341
- Case number
- NYC08LA124
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
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: d13e2eefa6ac012eaae3e514b44c23d8f7791b2d221d77dbe31d2f149ccd001e; retrieved 2026-09-15T09:26:38.647Z.