WPR17LA087 · Titan TORNADO I
Titan TORNADO I · Accident: flight control system malfunction/failure during takeoff
From S44 · Spanaway, WA to Auburn Municipal Airport (S50)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR17LA087
- 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
Titan TORNADO I
- Aircraft type
- Titan TORNADO
- 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
- N5131H
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From S44 · Spanaway, WATo Auburn Municipal Airport (S50), Auburn, WA
- Aircraft age
- About 11 years (built 2006)
- 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
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft systems
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that after departure for the personal flight, the airplane climbed to about 200 ft above ground level but he could not maintain level flight; he had to apply full right aileron and right rudder. The airplane rolled left, and he simultaneously reduced the engine power and applied forward elevator in an attempt to arrest the roll. Despite his attempts, the pilot could not regain control of the airplane and deployed the ballistic recovery system parachute (BRS). The airplane touched down hard off the airport, and the nose landing gear collapsed. As a result of the impact, the pilot was unable to egress under his own power; the engine continued to run, and the BRS drifted into the propeller. The engine continued to operate until the BRS suspension lines stopped the propeller.
The examination of the aileron system revealed that the control tube was disconnected from the control mixer weldment. The stop nut that normally is affixed to the bolt connecting the aileron control tube to the control yoke tube was found on the cabin floor. The bolt end had a hole for a cotter pin, but no cotter pin was located. There were no markings on the nylon insert of the stop nut, which is consistent with the nut not being adequately attached during assembly.
During the last condition inspection, about 4 months and 24 flight hours before the accident, an airframe and powerplant mechanic had adjusted the aileron control mixer. It is likely that during that maintenance activity, the nylon hardware was not properly attached to the aileron control tube.
Probable cause
Maintenance personnel’s improper attachment of the aileron system components, which resulted in the pilot's inability to maintain flight control.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR17LA087
- Event ID
- 20170413X40146
- Case number
- WPR17LA087
- 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: dd51ddef72479b64182f46eaf1b64d1a65009d4ae51d5eab90ebc1447fd3afcf; retrieved 2026-09-16T05:10:02.345Z.