Provincetown-Boston Airlines Flight 1039
Provincetown Boston Airlines Embraer EMB-110P1 · Pitch system failure and pilot error leading to loss of control from elevator separation
From Jacksonville International Airport (JAX) to Tampa International Airport (TPA)
Event
- NTSB case
- DCA85AA004
- 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
- 13 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- Occupants
- 13
- Survivors
- 0
- InjuriesFatal: death within 30 days. Serious: over 48 hours in hospital within a week, most broken bones, severe bleeding, nerve or organ damage, or serious burns. Minor: anything less. Glossary
- 0 serious · 0 minor (NTSB)
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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
Embraer EMB-110P1
- Aircraft type
- Embraer EMB-110
- 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
- N96PB
- Operator
- Provincetown-Boston Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Jacksonville International Airport (JAX), Jacksonville, FLTo Tampa International Airport (TPA), Tampa, FL
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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
- First occurrenceThe 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
- Airframe, component or system 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
- Flight control system › Undetermined
- Flt control syst, elevator control › Failure, total
Approximate · Coordinates from the Wikipedia article; not checked against an investigation report.
From the Wikipedia article
Provincetown-Boston Airlines Flight 1039 was a scheduled passenger flight from Jacksonville International Airport in Jacksonville, Florida, to Tampa International Airport, Florida. On December 6, 1984, the plane crashed upon takeoff at Jacksonville, killing all 13 passengers and crew.
Background
Provincetown-Boston Airlines was a regional airline headquartered in Provincetown, Massachusetts. The airline had been grounded on November 10, 1984 for violating federal aviation safety rules, and began returning to service on November 25. Prior to being grounded, the airline carried more passengers than any other commuter airline in the United States.
On December 6, 1984, PBA operated Flight 1039 using an Embraer Bandeirante EMB-110P1 twin-turboprop regional airliner (registration N96PB). The EMB 110 was operated within its designed gross weight and center of gravity limits on the date of the accident. The aircraft was purchased by PBA in October 1981 and operated continuously by PBA until the accident, accumulating 5662 hours of operation and 7,858 cycles by the date of the accident.
Captain Thomas Ashby (34) was hired by PBA in 1974. At the time of the accident, he had accumulated approximately 10,000 hours of flying time, including approximately 400 hours in the EMB 110. First Officer Louis Fernandez (25) was hired in 1984, and had accumulated approximately 3,000 of flying time, including 500 hours in the EMB 110.
Accident
PBA Flight 1039 was scheduled to depart Jacksonville at 6:08 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. At 6:12 p.m., Flight 1039 received takeoff clearance and began its takeoff roll down Runway 31. At 6:13 p.m., the EMB 110 climbed above the departure end of Runway 31, Flight 1039 was told to switch to the departure control frequency, which he acknowledged with "OK, so long."
Thirty seconds later, witnesses saw the aircraft in a steep descent. The horizontal stabilizer, elevators, tail cone assembly, and part of the ventral fin separated from the aircraft while in flight. At 6:14 p.m., the EMB 110 crashed approximately 7800 feet beyond the end of Runway 31. The aircraft was destroyed by the impact and a post-crash fire; all 11 passengers and both crew members were killed by "severe impact forces which exceeded human tolerance."
Investigation and cause
Investigation
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigated the accident.
The NTSB found the horizontal stabilizer had separated from the EMB 110 in one piece, landing 1,100 feet short of the primary crash site. The tail cone and ventral fin separated along with the horizontal stabilizer. The left and right elevators separated from the horizontal stabilizer due to fractures in hinge brackets typical of overstress separations. As a result, the NTSB's investigation and analysis focused substantially on determining the sequence of, and the reasons for, the structural separations.
The hypotheses considered by the NTSB included:
The lack of a cockpit voice recorder (CVR) and flight data recorder (FDR) aboard the EMB 110 hampered the NTSB's ability to investigate the accident. At the time of the Flight 1039 accident, the Federal Aviation Administration had issued a notice of proposed rulemaking that would require installation of CVRs/FDRs on multi-engine turboprop passenger aircraft, but no such rule was finalized yet. The NTSB concluded that "installation of an FDR and CVR would have provided significant clues regarding the cause of this accident and remedied action needed to prevent recurrence."
Based on its investigations, the NTSB was able to determine multiple potential causes of an elevator control system or elevator trim system malfunction, any of which could have led the crew to take corrective actions that would result in an overstressed elevator control rod, and ultimately separation of the elevators and horizontal stabilizer. The NTSB issued its final report on June 24, 1986. In its report, it made the following statement regarding the probable cause of the accident:
Text from the Wikipedia article “Provincetown-Boston Airlines Flight 1039” (revision 1339309260, retrieved 2026-09-18) by its authors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Extracted as plain text: references, tables, images and some sections are left out. Read the article
NTSB narrative
PROVINCETOWN-BOSTON AIRLINES FLT 1039, AN EMBRAER EMB-110P1, WAS CLEARED TO TAKEOFF ON RWY 31 AT 1812 EST. DRG THE INITIAL CLIMB NR THE DEPARTURE END OF THE RWY, THE CAPT ROUTINELY ACKNOWLEDGED AN INSTRN TO CONTACT DEP CONTROL (CTL). SHORTLY THEREAFTER, THE ACFT ENTERED A STEEP DSCNT & CRASHED IN AN INVERTED, NOSE DWN ATTITUDE, THEN BURNED. AN INVESTI-GATION REVEALED THE ELEVATOR (ELEV) & HORIZONTAL STABILIZER (STAB) HAD SEPARATED IN FLT. THE STAB WAS FND ABOUT 1100 FT FM THE MAIN WRECKAGE. THE ELEV TRIM WAS FND IN A PSN TO TRIM THE ACFT FULL NOSE DWN. THERE WAS EVIDENCE OF A MALFUNCTIONOF THE ELEV CTL SYS OR ELEV TRIM SYS, WHICH RESULTED IN A PITCH CTL PROBLEM; THEN REACTION OF THE FLTCREW TO CORRECT THE PROBLEM OVERSTRESSED THE LEFT ELEV CTL ROD. ALSO, THERE WAS EVIDENCE THAT THIS RESULTED IN AN ASYMMETRICAL ELEV DEFLECTION & OVERSTRESS FAILURE OF THE STAB ATTACHMENT STRUCTURE. HOWEVER, THE SAFETY BOARD WAS UNABLE TO DETERMINE THE PRECISE PROBLEM WITH THE PITCH CTL SYS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
Wikipedia article: Provincetown-Boston Airlines Flight 1039
- Revision
- 1339309260 · 2026-02-19 · retrieved 2026-09-18
- Wikidata
- Q7118386
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
NTSB record DCA85AA004
- Event ID
- 20001214X41750
- Case number
- DCA85AA004
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Where each value comes from
- Record
- Wikipedia article "Provincetown-Boston Airlines Flight 1039" (page 27308174, revision 1339309260); merged with NTSB case DCA85AA004 (events / aircraft)
- Date
- NTSB record DCA85AA004: NTSB API eventDate, eventTimeUtc and eventTimeUtcOffsetHours (local date)
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site; country from NTSB record DCA85AA004
- Map position
- Wikipedia: Wikipedia article coordinates
- Aircraft, operator and route
- NTSB record DCA85AA004: aircraft; gaps from Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports)
- Operation
- NTSB record DCA85AA004: operated under Part 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- Fatalities
- NTSB record DCA85AA004: NTSB API totalFatal
- Ground fatalities
- NTSB record DCA85AA004: NTSB API ongroundFatal
- Summary
- Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (3)
- One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "Provincetown-Boston Airlines Flight 1039" and NTSB case DCA85AA004, matched by the same aircraft registration and date. For this US event the NTSB's values are used where the two differ; each value names its source.
- 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.