ERA14LA098 · Israel Aircraft Industries GULFSTREAM 200
NetJets Aviation Israel Aircraft Industries GULFSTREAM 200 · Accident: part(s) separation from aircraft en route
From Savannah Hilton Head International Airport (KSAV) to Savannah Hilton Head International Airport (KSAV)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA14LA098
- 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
Israel Aircraft Industries GULFSTREAM 200
- Aircraft type
- Israel GULFSTREAM 200
- 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
- N720QS
- Operator
- NetJets Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Savannah Hilton Head International Airport (KSAV), Savannah, GATo Savannah Hilton Head International Airport (KSAV), Savannah, GA
- Aircraft age
- About 11 years (built 2003)
- 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
- Part(s) separation from aircraft
- 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 handling/service
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane had undergone maintenance for an unresolved landing gear position indication issue. The flight crew reported that, during the third postmaintenance operational check flight (OCF), the airplane experienced a "thud" and momentary shudder as it climbed through 16,000 ft at 280 knots. The flight crew observed no other anomalies and did not experience any abnormal handling characteristics with the airplane during the remainder of the flight.
Upon landing, the flight crew observed that the auxiliary power unit (APU) service door was open and bent but that it remained attached at its aft hinge point. The door's lower latches were partially engaged, and a detailed examination revealed no anomalies with the latch assembly. The lower portion of the rudder was substantially damaged due to contact with the service door. Review of maintenance work orders revealed that maintenance had been performed in the APU compartment before another OCF that had been conducted several days before the accident flight and that it was subsequently inspected in accordance with the maintenance provider's procedures. Maintenance personnel should have noted that the APU service door was not properly secured during the inspection. The flight crew's preflight inspection did not include inspecting the APU service door because it was only accessible with the aid of a ladder.
Probable cause
Maintenance personnel’s failure to properly secure the auxiliary power unit service door before returning the airplane to service, which resulted in substantial damage to the rudder.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA14LA098
- Event ID
- 20140121X24842
- Case number
- ERA14LA098
- 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. 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: 281cedb275cc7c734a195ad850184be0c48dc8e78f60523efee8517695af6b44; retrieved 2026-09-15T23:16:07.510Z.