Why Before-Takeoff Control Checks Are Important

Maintenance techs aren’t required to be pilots or aerodynamicists.

Peter Garrison

Thursday, April 25, 2019 at 10:40 PM ET

Verified

Spanish Fork, Utah Airport Runway Courtesy Spanish Fork Airport

Key Takeaways:

A prototype business jet crashed due to inadvertently reversed aileron controls following maintenance, caused by an incorrectly reinstalled mechanical component and inadequate verification.
Similar incidents of control reversal, even in modern fly-by-wire aircraft, have occurred immediately after maintenance, leading to severe inflight emergencies.
A key contributing factor across these events was the failure of both maintenance personnel and flight crews to adequately verify the *direction* of control surface movement, only confirming that controls moved.
The article stresses the critical need for pilots to meticulously perform pre-flight control checks by actively confirming the correct *direction* of control surface response to prevent such catastrophic errors.

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On July 25, 2006, at Spanish Fork, Utah, the prototype of the Spectrum Model 33 business jet lifted off on a test flight. The 7,300-pound all-composite airplane, powered by two Williams FJ33 turbofans of 1,562 pounds of thrust each, had previously logged 44 hours in the course of 46 test flights before spending seven weeks on the ground for modifications to the main landing gear and the surrounding structure and systems.

Immediately after breaking ground, the airplane rolled to the right. The wing struck the ground and the airplane crashed, killing both pilots. Subsequent examination of the wreckage revealed that the aileron controls had been inadvertently installed in such a way as to reverse their operation.