ERA12IA582 · Learjet Inc 60
Delta Private Jets Learjet Inc 60 · Incident: system/component malfunction/failure (non-power) during takeoff
From Teterboro Airport (TEB) to Lehigh Valley International Airport (ABE)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA12IA582
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Learjet Inc 60
- Aircraft type
- Learjet 60
- 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
- N862PA
- Operator
- Delta Private Jets
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Teterboro Airport (TEB), Teterboro, NJTo Lehigh Valley International Airport (ABE), Allentown, PA
- 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
- 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
- None
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft systems
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
After pretakeoff checks revealed no anomalies, the pilots taxied the airplane to the runway for takeoff. Shortly after beginning the takeoff roll, they received an aural warning, and the nosegear steering disconnect light illuminated on the master caution panel. The airplane veered left, and the pilots aborted the takeoff. The airplane’s nose landing gear and left main landing gear exited the left side of the runway, where the airplane came to rest undamaged. During postincident maintenance and troubleshooting, the airplane’s nosewheel steering computer was replaced, and subsequent taxi tests confirmed normal operation of the steering. The removed nosewheel steering computer was sent to the manufacturer’s facility for further testing, where it performed within specifications. The unit’s history log indicated repeated attempts to calibrate the unit and ultimately a failure of the strut servo. However, the failure could not be replicated in postincident tests.
Probable cause
Failure of the nosewheel steering computer strut servo for reasons that could not be determined or replicated during postincident testing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA12IA582
- Event ID
- 20120928X62352
- Case number
- ERA12IA582
- 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, 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: 047873c5e433c17d36de9cd2b00a2130fcb5fb1c7ce9361d851dd75d267b2a18; retrieved 2026-09-15T20:03:05.880Z.