ATL87IA114
1987-04-16 · MYRTLE BEACH, South Carolina, United States · None · 1 aircraft · Status: Completed
Airport CRE
Current FAA registration · N25RF
- Make / Model
- CESSNA 340
- Year of manufacture
- 1973 · 14 years old at event
- Engine
- CONT MOTOR TSIO-520 SER (300 hp)
- Seats / Engines
- 6 seats · 2 engines
- Last airworthiness date
- 19731023
- ADS-B equipped
- Yes — Mode-S A256A2
Source: FAA Aircraft Registry (releasable master file).
Aircraft involved
Factual narrative
PLT INITIATED AUTOPLT CLIMB FROM 12000 TO 16000 FT. PLT HEARD A LOUD SNAPPING NOISE. ACFT PITCHED UP AND EFFORTS OF BOTH FRONT SEAT OCCUPANTS WERE REQD TO KEEP NOSE DOWN. PLT STATED TRIM STUCK IN FULL NOSE UP POSITION. PLT STATED THAT WHEN THE ACFT APPROACHED RWY FOR LDG, HE REDUCED PWR AND ACFT TOUCHED DOWN SHORT. THE NOSE AND RIGHT MAIN GEAR COLLAPSED. TESTING SHOWED ELECTRICAL OUTPUT TO AUTOPILOT ERRATIC. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database (Pre-2008 Archive) Retrieved: 2026-02-12
Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file
NTSB_1987_ATL87IA114.txt.
Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb.
Full investigation docket on
data.ntsb.gov ↗.
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Related research
Matched on aircraft type or causal vocabulary (autopilot). All research papers
- NTSB Aircraft Accident Reports 2010 · Accident report Loss of Control on Approach — Colgan Air Flight 3407
Colgan Air 3407 / Continental Connection (Q400) Buffalo NY, February 12, 2009 — 50 fatalities. Definitive investigation of the Colgan 3407 stall-stick-pusher crash on approach to Buffalo.
- arXiv 2025 · arXiv preprint ROSflight 2.0: Lean ROS 2-Based Autopilot for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
ROSflight is a lean, open-source autopilot ecosystem for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Designed by researchers for researchers, it is built to lower the barrier to entry to UAV research and acceler…
- arXiv 2025 · arXiv preprint ROSplane 2.0: A Fixed-Wing Autopilot for Research
Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) research requires the integration of cutting-edge technology into existing autopilot frameworks.
- arXiv 2024 · arXiv preprint A Data-Driven Autopilot for Fixed-Wing Aircraft Based on Model Predictive Control
Autopilots for fixed-wing aircraft are typically designed based on linearized aerodynamic models consisting of stability and control derivatives obtained from wind-tunnel testing.
- arXiv 2022 · arXiv preprint Experimental Flight Testing of a Fault-Tolerant Adaptive Autopilot for Fixed-Wing Aircraft
This paper presents an adaptive autopilot for fixed-wing aircraft and compares its performance with a fixed-gain autopilot.
- arXiv 2021 · arXiv preprint An Adaptive Digital Autopilot for Fixed-Wing Aircraft with Actuator Faults
This paper develops an adaptive digital autopilot for a fixed-wing aircraft and compares its performance with a fixed-gain autopilot.