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Atlas / NTSB / MIA93LA185

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event MIA93LA185

1993-08-27 COCOA, Florida, United States Airport · COI Serious 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Aircraft involved

Probable cause & findings

FAILURE OF MAINTENANCE PERSONNEL TO PROPERLY REINSTALL A BOLT AND NUT IN THE ELEVATOR CONTROL LINKAGE, WHICH RESULTED IN A DISCONNECT OF THE LINKAGE AND LOSS OF ELEVATOR CONTROL.

Factual narrative

THE AIRCRAFT HAD JUST BEEN REPAIRED AFTER RECEIVING TORNADO DAMAGE. THIS REPAIR INCLUDED REMOVAL AND REPLACEMENT OF THE ELEVATOR CONTROL TUBE. THE PILOT TAXIED TO THE RUNWAY FOR THE PURPOSE OF A TEST FLIGHT. ALL FLIGHT CONTROL CHECKS APPEARED NORMAL. AFTER LIFT-OFF, THE PILOT INTENDED TO LEVEL OFF AT 5 TO 10 FEET, THEN TOUCH DOWN AGAIN. HOWEVER, AFTER THE AIRPLANE BECAME AIRBORNE, HE LOST ELEVATOR CONTROL, AND THE AIRCRAFT CLIMBED STEEPLY TO 50 TO 75 FEET. THE PILOT THEN REDUCED POWER, THE AIRCRAFT'S NOSE DROPPED, AND THE AIRCRAFT DESCENDED. WITH NO ELEVATOR CONTROL, THE PILOT WAS UNABLE TO ARREST THE DESCENT, AND THE AIRCRAFT IMPACTED THE GROUND. A POST-CRASH EXAMINATION REVEALED THAT A BOLT AND NUT WERE MISSING FROM THE ELEVATOR CONTROL LINKAGE, WHICH ALLOWED THE LINKAGE TO BECOME DISCONNECTED. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database (Pre-2008 Archive) Retrieved: 2026-02-12

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_1993_MIA93LA185.txt. Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb. Full investigation docket on data.ntsb.gov ↗.

Related research

What the literature says.

Academic papers and agency reports matching this event's aircraft type or causal vocabulary (stall, maintenance). Sourced from NASA NTRS, NTSB Safety Studies, FAA CAMI, AOPA Air Safety Institute, Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons, arXiv, and the Semantic Scholar academic graph.

Browse the full corpus — academia portal ↗