What happened
During a flight intended for pilot training and cockpit familiarization, an aircraft crashed approximately one mile southwest of the runway approach end. The flight was the initial mission following maintenance work that included the rigging of flight control cables. Roughly one minute after the takeoff roll commenced, the first officer notified the tower of the need to return to the airport. The aircraft struck a cornfield 2 minutes and 40 seconds after the start of the takeoff roll.
Data from the cockpit voice recorder revealed that the crew did not request the retraction of flaps, the raising of the landing gear, or a reduction in power. Instead, the captain repeatedly issued commands to pull back on the controls. When the pilot observer inquired about the status of the trim, the captain indicated that the trim was no longer responding. There were no fatalities reported in this incident.
Findings
Post-accident inspections determined that the elevator trim cables were rigged incorrectly, causing the system to operate in reverse. Consequently, any attempt by the pilot to apply nose-up trim resulted in the application of nose-down trim.
Investigation into the maintenance records showed that while the mechanic had signed off on the work, the Required Inspection Item (RII) inspector had failed to sign off on the specific task of connecting and rigging the elevator servo trim tab cables. Although the maintenance instructions explicitly required an RII-qualified inspector to verify all elevator controls, this mandatory inspection step was omitted.