WPR24LA038 · Beech 95
Beech 95 · Accident: flight control system malfunction/failure during initial climb
From an unrecorded airport to Kingman Airport (IGM)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR24LA038
- 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
Beech 95
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 95
- 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
- N2024C
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Kingman Airport (IGM), Kingman, AZ
- Aircraft age
- About 64 years (built 1959)
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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 structures
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Shortly after departing on the instructional flight, the pilot receiving instruction noted the rudder pedals moving back and forth without his input. The flight instructor assumed control of the airplane, also felt the rudder pedals moving, and chose to return to the airport. The oscillation of the rudder pedals intensified, the airplane began to shake violently, and the windscreen separated from the airplane. The pilots declared an emergency and subsequently landed uneventfully at the departure airport.
Postaccident examination of the airplane revealed that the rudder trim control rod end was fracture separated near the trim tab attachment point. Metallurgical examination revealed fatigue cracking parallel to the clevis attachment bolt. The overall fracture was consistent with fatigue crack growth from bending loads on the fitting where the bending moment’s axis was parallel to the clevis attachment bolt axis. It is likely that buckling of the control rod end produced the fatigue crack initiation and propagation. The fracture surface appeared free of any substantial long-term oxidation from a preexisting crack, suggesting that the fracture likely occurred due to repeated, high-compressive loads associated with the reported rudder trim flutter condition, and was secondary to the flutter condition, not the cause.
Flutter is governed by aircraft speed, structural stiffness, and mass distribution. An increase in airspeed, a reduction in structural stiffness, or a change in mass distribution can increase the susceptibility to flutter. Review of maintenance records revealed that maintenance had been performed on the rudder trim tab hardware about one month before the accident flight. While it is likely that the flutter event developed first and resulted in the fracture of the rudder trim control rod end, the initiating event of the rudder flutter could not be determined based on the available evidence.
Probable cause
Aeroelastic flutter of the rudder control surface during the takeoff initial climb for reasons that could not be determined based on the available evidence, which resulted in the fracture of the rudder trim control rod end in flight.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR24LA038
- Event ID
- 20231120193407
- Case number
- WPR24LA038
- 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: local date, investigation status, cause areas. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2023-11-18.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 01cadae3e908740ee93a8f7de5d23af2327ba62a1b037aaa94ac17941ec2281c; retrieved 2026-09-16T18:18:28.891Z.