CEN14IA172 · Cessna 560XL
Netjets Sales Cessna 560XL · Incident: flight control system malfunction/failure during landing
From Sarasota Bradenton International Airport (SRQ) to Cherry Capital Airport (TVC)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN14IA172
- 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
Cessna 560XL
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 560
- 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
- N580QS
- Operator
- Netjets Sales
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Sarasota Bradenton International Airport (SRQ), SARASOTA/BRADENTON, FLTo Cherry Capital Airport (TVC), Traverse City, MI
- Aircraft age
- About 7 years (built 2007)
- 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
- Landing · landing roll
- 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 systems
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The flight was conducted at flight level 400, and the entire flight was 3 hours 17 minutes long. During the landing at the destination airport, the flying pilot noted that the rudder pedals were hard or frozen; however, he was able to make an uneventful landing. The nonflying pilot then took the flight controls and confirmed the rudder pedal situation. Once slowed to a safe speed, the flight crew was able to break the rudder pedals free and to taxi the airplane to the ramp. After the airplane was parked and shut down, the rudder still felt stiff and required more input than normal to operate.
Postaccident examinations confirmed compliance with an alert service letter and service bulletin related to control cable icing. Examinations also revealed witness mark consistent with a water line in the fuselage area, and a liquid consistent with pooled deice fluid, staining, and moisture was found in the tailcone compartment. Water was also found where the galley drain exits the pressure vessel and enters the fairing area. Water was observed draining from the black foam wrap around the drain tube's heating element, and the black foam exhibited deformation consistent with the expansion of frozen water. Removal of the foam revealed an opening in the drain tube. Testing of the galley drain heating element revealed that it was inoperative. Black foam deposits were observed on a rudder cable, but no rudder system anomalies were detected.
Laboratory tests revealed that an opening in the drain tube caused the rudder cables to freeze to the drain mast, and some additional force above a baseline was needed to break the simulated rudder pedals free from a static position. At the time of the incident, the airplane's approved inspection program did not specify that the galley drain tube or heater should be inspected. Additionally, the failure of the galley drain heater is not annunciated to the flight crew nor to maintenance personnel.
It is likely that the undetected failure of the galley drain tube heater allowed the water within the galley drain tube to freeze, which led to the tube's failure. Once the tube failed, water was allowed to drain from the tube onto the rudder cables; this water also froze due to the inoperative heater and caused the rudder to bind during landing.
Probable cause
The inoperative galley drain tube heater, which allowed water within the tube to freeze and led to its failure; the tube’s failure allowed water to drain onto the rudder cables and freeze and resulted in the rudder binding during landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN14IA172
- Event ID
- 20140327X84223
- Case number
- CEN14IA172
- 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: 553ace745d0165296ca63130cb156615116c7eb4493f004b1ada3369b4e56cef; retrieved 2026-09-15T23:27:35.427Z.