This is an excerpt from a report made to the Aviation Safety Reporting System. The narrative is written by the pilot, rather than FAA or NTSB officials. To maintain anonymity, many details, such as aircraft model or airport, are often scrubbed from the reports.
While performing the run-up checklist I was checking the yoke flight controls. I started full forward and made full left and right inputs.
Upon pulling the yoke full aft I tried to make right input but the yoke was binding.
I pushed the yoke fully forward, made full left and right inputs, then tried pulling the yoke full aft and this time the yoke only traveled approximately 60% aft before coming to a stop.
After taxiing back to the hangar, I called the maintenance shop that performed our annual to have a look.
They quickly discovered the radio stack was sagging in the rear and the vent tray for the factory radio stack was resting on the controls. They also indicated the straps were not secured.
They pushed the back of the radio stack up and showed me the flight controls were working and asked if I could have the avionics shop take a look since they recently installed a new comm radio.
The plane was taken to the avionics shop to be repaired. I was told by the tech doing the repair that the hanging strap was not attached to the structure because it was not long enough.
They replaced the hanging strap with a longer one that would reach the structure.
I believe the initial binding of the controls on right input was enough to cause the vent tray to push on the radio stack, causing it to slide down and prevent the yoke from full aft travel.
I believe the root cause was due to an installation error upon installing a new radio tray in the stack, which potentially caused a shift altering the length of the hanging strap and neglected to verify the strap post install.
The time duration in which this situation took place from control issue to repair was approximately three hours.
It was not until the following day when I looked at the FAR and realized a NTSB immediate notification for flight control system malfunction incident encompasses the time any person boards with intention of flight to disembarkation, which is only defined under Part 830.2 “Aircraft accident.”
I believe adding a new definition to Part 830.2 termed “aircraft operation” to define this would add some clarity to when incidents are reportable.
Primary Problem: Aircraft
ACN: 2034974
