2014 Bedford Gulfstream IV crash
Arizin Ventures Gulfstream Aerospace G IV · Attempted takeoff with gust lock engaged due to pilot error, resulting in runway overrun
From Laurence G Hanscom Field (BED) to Atlantic City International Airport (ACY)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA14MA271
- 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
- 7 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- Occupants
- 7
- 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
- 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
Gulfstream Aerospace G IV
- Aircraft type
- Gulfstream G
- 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
- N121JM
- Operator
- Arizin Ventures
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Laurence G Hanscom Field (BED), Bedford, MATo Atlantic City International Airport (ACY), Atlantic City, NJ
- Aircraft age
- About 14 years (built 2000)
- 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
- Takeoff · rejected takeoff
- 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
- Runway excursion
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Tower/antenna (incl guy wires)
- 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 oper/perf/capability
- Aircraft › Aircraft systems
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
From the Wikipedia article
American millionaire philanthropist Lewis Katz and six others were killed in a Gulfstream IV crash in Bedford, Massachusetts, on 31 May 2014. Katz, the co-owner of The Philadelphia Inquirer and several major sports teams, had chartered the twinjet for a day trip from Atlantic City, New Jersey, to Concord, Massachusetts. In addition to several personal friends, he had also invited Edward G. Rendell, a former governor of Pennsylvania, who was unable to accept.
The flight crew consisted of pilot-in-command James McDowell, of Georgetown, Delaware; co-pilot Bauke "Mike" de Vries, of Marlton, New Jersey; and flight attendant Teresa Anne Benhoff, of Easton, Maryland. The pilots attempted to take off with the airplane's gust lock inadvertently engaged, which resulted in the plane overrunning the runway and crashing into a ravine. All seven occupants of the plane were killed.
Accident
After concluding his business in Concord, Katz and his party returned to Hanscom Field in Bedford and boarded the airplane. The airplane prepared to depart at 9:40 pm EDT, lining up on runway 11 under night visual meteorological conditions. As it began its takeoff roll, the pilots realized that they had limited steering control and that the engine throttle levers could not be advanced to full power. The plane passed V1, the maximum speed at which the pilots could have aborted takeoff, but they failed to apply the brakes for about ten seconds or reduce the throttles for another four seconds after the crew realized there was a problem. The airplane rolled through the paved overrun area and across a grassy area, collided with approach lights and a localizer antenna, passed through the airport's perimeter fence, and came to a stop in a shallow ravine formed by the Shawsheen River, where its full load of fuel immediately caught fire. All seven people aboard were killed, and the airframe was destroyed by the impact and post-crash fire.
Investigation and cause
Investigation
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) issued its final report on 9 September 2015. The NTSB found that the flight crew failed to adhere to required pre-flight procedures. Critically, the pilots failed to conduct a flight control check, which would have revealed that the airplane's "gust lock" system, which protects the elevator, ailerons, and rudder from wind gusts while the airplane is parked by locking them in place, was still fully engaged and prevented use of those control surfaces. A review of data from the airplane's quick access recorder revealed that the pilots had neglected to perform complete flight control checks before 98 percent of their previous 175 takeoffs in the airplane, indicating that this oversight was habitual and not an exceptional event.
The gust lock handle also included an interlock mechanism intended to limit the throttle levers to just enough power for taxiing and idle while engaged. According to Gulfstream, this had been intended to prevent pilots from attempting to take off with the gust lock engaged. However, post-accident testing on other Gulfstream-IV airplanes found that, with the gust lock handle in the ON position, the forward throttle lever movement that could be achieved was three to four times greater than intended.
The NTSB concluded that the probable cause of the accident was the flight crew's failure to perform the flight control check before takeoff, which led to their attempt to take off with the gust lock system engaged, and their delay in aborting the takeoff after they became aware that the controls were locked. The NTSB also cited as contributing factors the flight crew's habitual noncompliance with checklists, Gulfstream's failure to ensure that the Gulfstream-IV gust lock / throttle lever interlock system would prevent an attempted takeoff with the gust lock engaged, and the Federal Aviation Administration's failure to detect this defect during the Gulfstream IV's airworthiness certification.
Text from the Wikipedia article “2014 Bedford Gulfstream IV crash” (revision 1339754288, 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
The Safety Board's full report is available at http://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Pages/AccidentReports.aspx. The Aircraft Accident Report number is NTSB/AAR-15/03.
On May 31, 2014, about 2140 eastern daylight time, a Gulfstream Aerospace Corporation G-IV, N121JM, registered to SK Travel, LLC, and operated by Arizin Ventures, LLC, crashed after it overran the end of runway 11 during a rejected takeoff at Laurence G. Hanscom Field, Bedford, Massachusetts. The airplane rolled through the paved overrun area and across a grassy area, collided with approach lights and a localizer antenna, passed through the airport's perimeter fence, and came to a stop in a ravine. The two pilots, a flight attendant, and four passengers died. The airplane was destroyed by impact forces and a postcrash fire. The corporate flight, which was destined for Atlantic City International Airport, Atlantic City, New Jersey, was conducted under the provisions of 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 91. An instrument flight rules flight plan was filed. Night visual meteorological conditions prevailed at the time of the accident
Probable cause
The flight crewmembers' failure to perform the flight control check before takeoff, their attempt to take off with the gust lock system engaged, and their delayed execution of a rejected takeoff after they became aware that the controls were locked. Contributing to the accident were the flight crew's habitual noncompliance with checklists, Gulfstream Aerospace Corporation's failure to ensure that the G-IV gust lock/throttle lever interlock system would prevent an attempted takeoff with the gust lock engaged, and the Federal Aviation Administration's failure to detect this inadequacy during the G-IV's certification.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
Wikipedia article: 2014 Bedford Gulfstream IV crash
- Revision
- 1339754288 · 2026-02-22 · retrieved 2026-09-18
- Wikidata
- Q108315117
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
NTSB record ERA14MA271
- Event ID
- 20140531X32035
- Case number
- ERA14MA271
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
Where each value comes from
- Record
- Wikipedia article "2014 Bedford Gulfstream IV crash" (page 68472005, revision 1339754288); merged with NTSB case ERA14MA271 (events / aircraft)
- Date
- NTSB record ERA14MA271: NTSB narrative opening date, consistent with the API date and time (local date)
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site; country from NTSB record ERA14MA271
- Map position
- NTSB record ERA14MA271: events decimal coordinates
- Aircraft, operator and route
- NTSB record ERA14MA271: 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 ERA14MA271: operated under Part 91: General Aviation
- Fatalities
- NTSB record ERA14MA271: NTSB API totalFatal
- Ground fatalities
- NTSB record ERA14MA271: events.inj_f_grnd
- Summary
- Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (3)
- One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "2014 Bedford Gulfstream IV crash" and NTSB case ERA14MA271, 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2014-06-01.