ERA20CA232 · Ayres S2R T34
Ayres S2R T34 · Accident: flight control system malfunction/failure during takeoff
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA20CA232
- 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
Ayres S2R T34
- Aircraft type
- Ayres S2
- 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
- N4032L
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 21 years (built 1999)
- 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 137: Agricultural
- 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
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated that he performed a preflight inspection of the airplane and observed no discrepancies. While taxiing for takeoff he performed a check of the flight controls, adding there were no discrepancies and the gust lock was free. He initiated takeoff, and when the flight was 20 ft above the runway, he noted the airplane was right wing low. He applied left aileron control input but noted the control did not move. He then also applied right aileron control input, but it wouldn’t move to the right either. He aborted the takeoff and thought about dumping the load of chemical but did not. The airplane touched down on the grass portion of his runway and bounced three times. On the third bounce he reported both main landing gear collapsed. The airplane slid into the nearby field and came to rest upright. Postaccident examination of the airplane revealed substantial damage to both wings and the bottom of the fuselage. Examination of the flight control system was unable to identify any obstructions or other issues.
Probable cause
The reported malfunction of the aileron flight control system during takeoff for reasons that could not be determined.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA20CA232
- Event ID
- 20200627X95205
- Case number
- ERA20CA232
- 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, cause areas. 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: c3755cc6ae09b76a9b8081ec1c220385a517a5ffcffdec4589353bf14287beee; retrieved 2026-09-16T11:57:19.400Z.