Eclipse EA500 N539RM

Summary

On 17 April 2008 at about 22:30 local time, a Eclipse EA500 registered N539RM was involved in an incident near Pontiac, Michigan, United States. 2 people were on board and nobody was injured. The NTSB has published a probable cause for this accident; it is quoted in full below.

Date

17 April 2008 at 22:30

Classification

Incident

Location

Pontiac, Michigan, United States

Coordinates

42.6656, -83.4194

Aircraft

Eclipse EA500

Registration

N539RM

Category

Airplane

Engines

2

Operator

Not recorded

Operating rule

Part 91: General Aviation

Purpose of flight

Instructional

Phase of flight

Not recorded

Route

Detroit → Unknown

Aircraft damage

Not recorded

Weather

VMC

Light

Dusk

NTSB number

CHI08IA109

Nobody was injured.

The inadvertent stalling of the rudder trim actuator motor during flight due to the pilot's unintentional exceedence of the motor's design limit for stalling while accelerating after completing a simulated engine-out maneuver.

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

Read the full NTSB narrative

The instructor pilot reported that the pilot receiving training had completed a simulated engine failure of the right engine. Upon completion of the maneuver, he attempted to re-trim the rudder trim since it was set at 58 percent left trim. The rudder trim did not respond. The instructor pilot switched to Alternate trim but without success. The pilots followed the checklist items found in the Quick Reference Handbook (QRH) but without success. The manual trim did not correct the condition with the airspeed at about 200 knots. The instructor pilot executed a precautionary landing without incident. The airplane was shut down. When the airplane was restarted, the condition was corrected and the rudder trim operated normally. On April 30, 2008, Eclipse Aviation issued a Customer Pilot Communication (CPC) No. 500-2008-007 titled "Rudder Trim Operation." The CPC stated, "There have been several instances of Eclipse 500 operators reporting an inability to actuate the rudder trim following acceleration from a practice single engine event. It was determined that this is caused by trimming rudder for a slow airspeed and then accelerating without removing trim, significantly increasing the trim tab loading and exceeding the trim motor design stalling point. This is considered normal operation, as it is a feature of the design to prevent excessive rudder loads."

Quoted verbatim from the NTSB record.