Air Indiana Flight 216
National Jet Douglas DC-3 · Rudder and right aileron control locks not removed before takeoff
From Evansville Regional Airport (EVV) to Nashville International Airport (BNA)
Event
- 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
- Unknown
- Event fatalities
- 29 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- Occupants
- Unknown
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Douglas DC-3
- Aircraft type
- Douglas DC-3
- 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
- N51071
- Operator
- National Jet…
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Evansville Regional Airport (EVV)To Nashville International Airport (BNA)
- 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 (domestic passenger charter)
- 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
- Uncontrolled collision with ground/water
- 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
- Miscellaneous acts, conditions › Gust locks engaged
- Pilot in command › Inadequate preflight preparation and/or planning
Approximate · Coordinates from the Wikipedia article; not checked against an investigation report.
From the Wikipedia article
The Air Indiana Flight 216 crash occurred on December 13, 1977, at 19:22 CST, when a Douglas DC-3, registration N51071 carrying the University of Evansville basketball team, the Evansville Purple Aces, lost control and crashed shortly after takeoff at the Evansville Regional Airport in Evansville, Indiana. The plane was on its way to Nashville International Airport, taking the team to play the Middle Tennessee Blue Raiders in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.
The National Transportation Safety Board blamed the crash on the pilot's failure to remove gust locks on the right aileron and the rudder before takeoff, as well as an overloaded baggage compartment. The NTSB report said that the plane might have been able to stay airborne had only one of the problems existed. As it was, the extra baggage shifted the plane's center of gravity to the rear, and the locked rudder and aileron made it impossible to control the overweight aircraft.
Head coach Bobby Watson was the only coach on board the flight as his assistant coaches were on scouting assignments at the time. Athletic director Jim Byers had planned to board the plane but stayed behind to interview a candidate for the baseball program. Four of the passengers were still breathing when found by rescuers, with three dying on the scene and one dying hours after the accident. The only member of the Purple Aces who did not die in the crash was 18-year-old freshman David Furr; he was out for the season with an ankle injury and thus was not on the plane that day. Two weeks after the crash, Furr and his younger brother Byron were killed in a car accident near Newton, Illinois, leaving the entire 1977 Evansville team dead. After consideration, the rest of the season was cancelled.
A memorial has been constructed at the University of Evansville known as the "Weeping Basketball." On stone slabs are engraved the names of the players who were killed, including Furr (the final name on the monument is that of Charles Goad of the Goad Equipment Company, invited on the flight by his friend Bob Hudson). Also engraved is an excerpt from the eulogy delivered by school president Wallace Graves at a memorial service: "Out of the agony of this hour we will rise." A memorial is also at the Ford Center, where the Purple Aces currently play their home games.
Flight crew
Pilot - Ty Van Pham (aged 42)
Copilot - Gaston Ruiz (aged 35)
Text from the Wikipedia article “Air Indiana Flight 216” (revision 1373347038, 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 remarks
RUDDER,R AIL CTL LOCKS INSTALLED.REAR CG AFT OF OPTIMUM RANGE BUT FORWARD OF REARMOST LIMIT.
NTSB's remark from its 1962–1981 archive, as recorded (abbreviated, at most 98 characters): the archive has no narrative
Sources
Wikipedia article: Air Indiana Flight 216
- Article
- Air Indiana Flight 216
- Revision
- 1373347038 · 2026-09-05 · retrieved 2026-09-18
- Wikidata
- Q7895381
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
NTSB record
- Event ID
- 19771213P070000
- Case number
- Unknown
- Dataset
- historical-pre1982
- Source SHA-256
- abe1a933b4b73583d61684309f7f0610c281e3c1de3537c6471bf2a98ba6481d
Where each value comes from
- Record
- Wikipedia article "Air Indiana Flight 216" (page 33032470, revision 1373347038); merged with NTSB case NTSB19771213P070000 (PRE1982 tblFirstHalf (one row per aircraft, grouped by date, place and time))
- Date
- NTSB record NTSB19771213P070000: PRE1982 DATE_OCCURRENCE
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site; country from NTSB record NTSB19771213P070000
- Map position
- Wikipedia: Wikipedia article coordinates
- Aircraft, operator and route
- NTSB record NTSB19771213P070000: PRE1982 REGIST_NO, ACFT_MAKE, ACFT_MODEL; gaps from Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports)
- Operation
- NTSB record NTSB19771213P070000: operated under Part 135: Air taxi & commuter (charter-passenger-domestic)
- Fatalities
- NTSB record NTSB19771213P070000: PRE1982 TOTAL_ABRD_FATAL of each aircraft, plus people on the ground and others outside the aircraft
- Ground fatalities
- NTSB record NTSB19771213P070000: events.inj_f_grnd
- Summary
- Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (4)
- One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "Air Indiana Flight 216" and NTSB case NTSB19771213P070000, 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.
- From NTSB's 1962-1981 archive (PRE1982), which holds at most a short remark (98 characters, abbreviated) instead of a narrative; the accident type, phase of flight, causes and conditions are NTSB's codes, decoded as the archive defines them.
- Reviewed means this record passed the site's consistency check, not that it was checked against a narrative or report - there is none to check against.
- The operation category is mapped from the archive's operator and operation codes and has not been reviewed.