WPR10LA260 · SOCATA TBM 700
SOCATA TBM 700 · Accident: flight control system malfunction/failure en route
From San Luis County Regional Airport (SBP) to Fresno Yosemite International Airport (FAT)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's location. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR10LA260
- 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
SOCATA TBM 700
- Aircraft type
- Socata TBM
- 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
- N750AB
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From San Luis County Regional Airport (SBP), San Luis Obispo, CATo Fresno Yosemite International Airport (FAT), Fresno, CA
- 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
- En route · climb to cruise
- 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
- Flight control system malfunction/failure
- 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
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During the takeoff initial climb, the pilot reported that the rudder trim became deflected to the left and remained stuck in that position. He stopped the climb, cycled the autopilot, and turned off the yaw damper; however, his efforts did not resolve the rudder trim deflection issue. The pilot input rudder in an attempt to correct the issue, and he thought that the airplane was under control, so he continued the flight to his destination. The avionics failed shortly thereafter, followed by the illumination of the low fuel pressure light. Then the engine lost power. The pilot feathered the propeller and was able to reach an airport for an emergency landing. During the landing, the airplane floated down the runway, touching down about midfield. The pilot was not able to stop the airplane before it exited the runway and collided with terrain.
Postaccident, the rudder trim tab was found deflected two inches to the left. However, the rudder trim indicator showed a full deflection to the right. The circuit breaker was found partially open and was recycled, as indicated in the pilot’s operating handbook for rudder trim emergencies, and the anomaly could not be replicated.
Postaccident examination also found 90 gallons of fuel in the right tank and no fuel in the left tank. However, this airplane is equipped with a fuel autobalance system, which should have selected fuel to be fed from the right tank with the left tank empty. The reason for the loss of engine power could not be determined during postaccident testing and examination.
Probable cause
A loss of engine power for reasons that could not be determined because postaccident examination of the engine did not reveal any anomalies that would have precluded normal operation. Contributing to the accident was the pilot's failure to obtain the proper touchdown point on the runway, which led to the runway overrun.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR10LA260
- Event ID
- 20100524X75523
- Case number
- WPR10LA260
- 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. 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: 7611fd20abfb67c47cac6017c9640ad3dcba8ef7030c21c029ed84f9a15b4c80; retrieved 2026-09-15T14:12:13.014Z.