WPR11CA112 · Harvey Patten RANS S-6ES
Harvey Patten RANS S-6ES · Accident: system/component malfunction/failure (non-power) en route
From Sedona Airport (SEZ) to Buckeye Municipal Airport (BXK)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR11CA112
- 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
Harvey Patten RANS S-6ES
- Aircraft type
- Harvey Patten RANS S-6ES
- 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
- N8053R
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Sedona Airport (SEZ), Sedona, AZTo Buckeye Municipal Airport (BXK), Buckeye, AZ
- 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 · 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
- System/component malfunction/failure (non-power)
- 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
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While in cruise flight the pilot realized that he had lost elevator control. The pilot attempted to determine if there was any way to reestablish elevator control but was unsuccessful. He was able to maintain pitch control by increasing or decreasing engine power. During a precautionary landing the airplane impacted the runway hard and sustained substantial damage to the firewall. On-scene inspection of the aircraft’s elevator control system revealed that the bolt that connects the aft elevator push-pull control tube to the pilot and copilot's control stick bellcrank was missing, and was not found during a thorough inspection of the area. In addition, the bolt that connects the forward push-pull tube to the control stick bellcrank was ready to fall out. These bolts are an AN-type drilled shank bolt requiring a castellated nut and cotter pin for security. Neither of the nuts or cotter pins were found. The aircraft had 197 hours total time. The last condition inspection was performed 2 months and 24 operating hours prior to the accident. It could not be determined if the cotter pin had ever been installed.
Probable cause
A disconnection of the elevator control linkage due to incorrect installation or maintenance, which was due to the retaining nut backing off the bolt and allowing the bolt to fall out.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR11CA112
- Event ID
- 20110128X93200
- Case number
- WPR11CA112
- 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: cdd45a65dd212570785452f3d5e9a780a1822930755d356c5a1041814c3be0bb; retrieved 2026-09-15T15:43:06.949Z.