Aero Commander 690 N690JM

Summary

On 14 October 2001 at about 04:30 local time, a Aero Commander 690 registered N690JM was involved in an accident near Temecula, California, United States. 2 people were on board and one had minor injuries. The aircraft was substantially damaged. The NTSB has published a probable cause for this accident; it is quoted in full below.

Date

14 October 2001 at 04:30

Classification

Accident

Location

Temecula, California, United States

Nearest airport

French Valley Airport (F70)

Coordinates

33.5761, -117.1281

Aircraft

Aero Commander 690

Registration

N690JM

Category

Airplane

Engines

2

Operator

Not recorded

Operating rule

Part 91: General Aviation

Purpose of flight

Positioning

Phase of flight

Not recorded

Route

Flagstaff → Temecula

Aircraft damage

Substantial

Weather

VMC

Light

Night

NTSB number

LAX02LA005

1 person had minor injuries.

a misrigging of the engine controls that resulted in an asymmetric reverse thrust condition.

Quoted verbatim from the NTSB record. This site does not paraphrase or interpret it.

Read the full NTSB narrative

The airplane collided with an airport boundary fence during an aborted landing. The pilot made a normal approach following the visual approach slope indicator (VASI) with gear down and full flaps and touched down just past the numbers and began to decelerate. The pilot selected reverse thrust with both engines. As he added power to decelerate, the airplane suddenly veered to the left and off the runway when the right engine did not go into reverse thrust. He deselected reverse thrust and aligned the airplane with the runway. He was approaching the end of the runway at high speed and elected to attempt a takeoff. The airplane went off the end of the runway onto smooth grass. The pilot rotated the airplane, but the airplane collided with an airport boundary fence and came to rest in a field. In a post accident examination, when the power levers were placed in the full reverse position, the left fuel control measured 4 degrees, while the right measured 0 degrees. The left pitch control measured 10 degrees, while the right measured 0 degrees; the controls should have read 0 degrees. A controls engineer determined that during landing, there would be a 10-degree propeller pitch control (PPC) angle mismatch, which would be about 2.5 degrees of BETA angle. With matched levers, there would be asymmetric reverse thrust with the left engine lower in torque. This would result in the airplane turning towards the left if both propellers had gone into reverse pitch.

Quoted verbatim from the NTSB record.