ERA13IA326 · Piper PA-34 200
Phoenix East Aviation Piper PA-34 200 · Incident: flight control system malfunction/failure while maneuvering
From Daytona Beach International Airport (DAB) to Daytona Beach International Airport (DAB)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA13IA326
- 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
Piper PA-34 200
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-34
- 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
- N767PE
- Operator
- Phoenix East Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Daytona Beach International Airport (DAB), Daytona Beach, FLTo Daytona Beach International Airport (DAB), Daytona Beach, FL
- 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
- Maneuvering
- 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 handling/service
- Aircraft › Fluids/miscellaneous hardware
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot receiving instruction was recovering the airplane from a demonstrated minimum control airspeed condition. According to the flight instructor, the airplane was initially about 5,000 ft in a "clean" configuration. Both pilots then felt two "kicks" in the rudder system, which they then verbally confirmed to each other did not result from either of them making inputs. The pilot receiving instruction then heard a "snap," and the rudder pedals began to "pump" full deflection right and left. Subsequently, the flight instructor took control of the airplane and found that neither applying full rudder nor using both feet on the rudder neutralized the deflections. Even with both pilots trying to neutralize the rudders, the deflections continued. The flight instructor subsequently diverted the airplane to a nearby airport and landed it uneventfully.
During the on-scene examination, the rudder trim tab control rod was found fractured near the trim tab end. The control rod was replaced, and, during subsequent flights, no further rudder anomalies occurred. Metallurgical examination of the rod revealed that it had failed in overload, and no evidence of fatigue or corrosion was found.
Further examination revealed that the rudder trim control rod was composed of a low-alloy, 1000-series carbon steel. An airplane manufacturer representative indicated that the rod should have been composed of a higher grade, 4000-series steel. The airplane was manufactured in 1972, acquired by the current owner in 2005, and had 11,575 hours of operation at the time of the incident. It could not be determined when or by whom the rod was installed on the airplane; it was not installed during the airplane's current ownership.
Probable cause
The installation of an incorrect rudder trim tab control rod by unknown maintenance personnel, which resulted in the rod failing in flight due to overload and subsequent uncontrolled rudder oscillations.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA13IA326
- Event ID
- 20130719X01824
- Case number
- ERA13IA326
- 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: 742ab162f507db95b647a3f00247f0d4eba2bab33c9aefd90e3d8c0f67ef99ab; retrieved 2026-09-15T22:15:01.616Z.