WPR22LA136 · Downer Bellanca 14-19-2
Downer Bellanca 14-19-2 · Accident: flight control system malfunction/failure en route
From Tri Cities Airport (PSC) to an unrecorded destination
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's aircraft involved. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR22LA136
- 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
- Event fatalities
- Unknown
- 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
Downer Bellanca 14-19-2 Possible conflict
- Aircraft type
- Downer BELLANCA 14
- 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
- N7658B
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Tri Cities Airport (PSC), Pasco, WATo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 65 years (built 1957)
- 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 · 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
- 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
During cruise flight the airplane lost pitch authority after a flutter event partially disabled its elevator and resulted in structural damage to the horizontal and both outboard vertical stabilizers. Although the airplane had limited pitch authority following the event, the pilot was able to successfully land the airplane in a field.
The airplane was the subject of an airworthiness directive (AD) concerning play in the pitch trim system, which required inspection of the pitch trim tab for play at 100-hour intervals. The play in the pitch trim system had the potential to cause such a flutter event if not complied with. However, the airplane had just come out of its annual inspection and the pilot also examined the airplane in accordance with the AD just before flight. Additionally, no evidence of such play was observed during a postaccident examination. The pitch trim system had failed, but it appeared to be because of overload damage, likely sustained from the high oscillatory forces induced during the flutter event.
Examination of the elevator revealed that the upper lug that connected the elevator pitch control tube to the elevator bellcrank had failed. The weld joints in that area exhibited a lack of fusion and penetration, creating gaps between the filler with the control arm surfaces and the lug. These gaps allowed fatigue cracks to initiate and propagate. Once the cracks had grown large enough, the remaining intact weld material fractured from overstress, leading to the separation of the lug from the control tube.
The lug failure resulted in a partial disconnection of the control surface, which likely started the flutter event. This ultimately led to the failure of the pitch trim control arm, which would have exacerbated the flutter.
Corrosion and primer identified at the lug fracture area indicated the surfaces had not been properly prepared before welding. Although the lower lug had not failed, it also exhibited similar evidence of gaps caused by a lack of fusion and penetration.
It could not be determined if the lugs were welded at the time of the airplane’s manufacturer, more than 66 years before the accident, or during a subsequent repair.
Probable cause
An inadequately welded elevator attachment lug, which caused the elevator to partially detach from its bellcrank, resulting in flutter and structural damage.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR22LA136
- Event ID
- 20220328104848
- Case number
- WPR22LA136
- 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: d5c83a4397189a9f0f69c5e14c4dfb7694d8cf28b2c7c613e50e1eb7202192cb; retrieved 2026-09-16T15:04:43.362Z.