CEN11IA108 · Piaggio P180
Avantair Piaggio P180 · Incident: flight control system malfunction/failure on approach
From Westchester County Airport (HPN) to John Glenn Columbus International Airport (CMH)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN11IA108
- 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
Piaggio P180
- Aircraft type
- Piaggio P180
- 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
- N140SL
- Operator
- Avantair
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Westchester County Airport (HPN), White Plains, NYTo John Glenn Columbus International Airport (CMH), Columbus, OH
- 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 Subpart K: Fractional
- 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
- Approach
- 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
- None
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft structures
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During the airplane's descent, the yaw damper disengaged while the autopilot remained on. When the flightcrew checked the flight controls for freedom of control, the ailerons, elevator, and rudder were found to be frozen in place. The flightcrew exerted enough pressure until the controls broke free with a “snap.” The flight controls remained stiff for the remainder of the flight. The temperature was -9 degrees C at the destination. Following a normal approach and landing, the flight controls and nosewheel steering became inoperative. The flightcrew used differential power and braking to taxi to the ramp. A postflight examination by maintenance personnel revealed ice in the area of frame 36 and around the primary flight control cables and pulleys in that area. An examination of the fuselage drain holes showed no obstructions and the airplane was returned to service. An emergency airworthiness directive was subsequently issued that advised of three incidents and that required inspection of the fuselage belly and testing of the fuselage drain holes.
Probable cause
The failure of water to properly drain through the fuselage drain holes, thus becoming trapped and freezing around the flight control cables, which resulted in the loss of control authority to the airplane's ailerons, elevator, and rudder.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN11IA108
- Event ID
- 20101214X60551
- Case number
- CEN11IA108
- 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, damage. 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: 625684c5831ca17026a611a4cf877b8e82b3a44947f3146e004764f2b201f6eb; retrieved 2026-09-15T15:37:26.586Z.