WPR22FA216 · Cessna 336
Cessna 336 · Accident: flight control system malfunction/failure en route
From an unrecorded airport to Shafter Airport - Minter Field (MIT)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR22FA216
- 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
- 1 · 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 336
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 336
- 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
- N3835U
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Shafter Airport - Minter Field (MIT), Shafter, CA
- Aircraft age
- About 58 years (built 1964)
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft systems
- 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
Shortly after takeoff, the pilot transmitted over the radio that he had lost “almost all pitch control,” but thought that he would be able to return and land at the departure airport. Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast (ADS-B) data showed that the airplane climbed to about 1,550 ft mean sea level (msl) before entering a descending right 180° turn toward the departure airport. The airplane leveled off about 1,000 ft msl and continued toward the airport. About two minutes later, the airplane entered a descent from 975 ft that continued to ground contact. Witnesses reported that they observed the airplane flying at low altitude when it suddenly descended into the ground in a steep, nose-low, wings-level attitude. Postaccident examination of the wreckage revealed that the bolt, castellated nut, and cotter pin that connected the balance weight to the elevator control assembly were missing. Soot was observed within the area of both connection points, including where the bolt and washer would have been installed, consistent with the hardware not being installed at the time of the accident. It is likely that the bolt separated while in flight, resulting in a loss of elevator pitch control. The missing bolt, nut, washer, and cotter pin were not located. The airplane was painted and returned to service about 28 days before the accident, which included removal and reinstallation of all the flight controls. It could not be determined if the securing hardware (nut and cotter pin) were installed at the time of the reinstallation of the elevator. Toxicology testing of the pilot revealed the presence of ethanol in liver tissue; however, the detected ethanol likely was from postmortem production. Thus, it is unlikely that ethanol contributed to the accident.
Probable cause
Maintenance personnel’s failure to properly secure the elevator control assembly hardware, which resulted in an in-flight disconnection of the elevator and elevator counterweight and the pilot’s inability to maintain pitch control.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR22FA216
- Event ID
- 20220619105275
- Case number
- WPR22FA216
- 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, 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: e19c2db305e89ceaf92fe5b3bbd68980e799699de49d16bbc5eacd04d9497ad4; retrieved 2026-09-15T07:46:11.051Z.