2009-11 · NASA ASRS report 860764
A B767-300's ailerons were binding on the pre-takeoff control check. The aircraft was returned to the gate and removed from service.
While parked in the holding pad; I attempted to perform the control check. When I turned the yoke left; it bound and stuck around 4 units left (yoke physically stuck left). Tried right and it went full throw right but bound and did not return to neutral. Moved yoke to neutral and noticed right inboard aileron was full deflection. Tried left and right again; and it bound; with the right inboard aileron not stuck full; but definitely lagging and staying full deflection longer than normal. Noticeable clicking heard and slight thump felt on the floor during aileron check. Never did get to check elevator due to the fact that we returned to the gate; but elevator checked OK by mechanics once we returned to the gate. Mechanics could not get the ailerons to bind; and the yoke never got stuck left or right (as it did for us); but they could hear the click and feel the bump. Something was definitely wrong with the flight controls and returning to the gate and grounding the aircraft was the proper safe response by the Captain.
Our 767 was fully loaded with passengers including both cockpit jump seats. At the point of the flight control check; the First Officer rolled the yoke all the way to the right. It was normal. Then he rolled it left. At about 1/3 throw it seemed to hit a solid point it would not pass. He looked at me to see if my knee or some other object was in the way; but nothing was. He again went full right; then left and the same thing happened again. I then turned MY yoke to the right. I then rolled it left. I did not force it but it then did go full left. I rolled right again and released it to see if it would pop to the center; as it should; but it stayed about 1/3 right of center. We were extremely uncomfortable with all of this. We called Maintenance; returned to the terminal and the airplane was taken out of service.
More incidents for this aircraft family
Source: NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System (public domain). Reports are voluntary submissions and are not verified by NASA.
Loading the flight search…
Pick an aircraft model — Boeing 737, Airbus A320, A380, Boeing 787 Dreamliner and more — enter your origin airport, and FlightFinder shows every route that plane flies from there with live fares.
We support Boeing 737/747/757/767/777/787, the full Airbus A220/A319/A320/A321/A330/A340/A350/A380 family, Embraer E170/E175/E190/E195, Bombardier CRJ and Dash 8, and the ATR 42/72 turboprops.
Search and schedules are free. Pro ($4.99/month, $39/year, or $99 one-time lifetime) unlocks the enriched flight card — on-time stats, CO₂ per passenger, amenities, live gate & weather — plus My Trips with push alerts.
Live schedules come from Amadeus, AeroDataBox and Travelpayouts. Observed routes (which aircraft actually flew a given city pair) are crowdsourced from adsb.lol ADS-B data under the Open Database License.