About Flight 5481:

Air Midwest flight 5481, a Beechcraft 1900D, crashed shortly after takeoff from runway 18R at Charlotte-Douglas International Airport (CLT, North Carolina, USA. The 21 occupants aboard the airplane were killed. The accident airplane had undergone a detail six (D6) maintenance check between the night of January 6 and the morning of January 7, 2003. During this check the elevator cable tension was adjusted. In the process the elevator control system was incorrectly rigged, restricted the airplane?s elevator travel to 7º airplane nose down, or about one-half of the normal downward travel. This error was not detected prior to release to service. The airplane returned to service on the morning of January 7 and flew a total of nine flight legs before the accident flight. At 08:37 the aircraft was ready for taxi for a flight to Greenville-Spartanburg Airport, South Carolina, USA. At 08:46 the flight was cleared for takeoff from runway 18R. One minute later, immediately after the landing gear had been retracted, the nose pitched up to 20°. Both crew members reacted with surprise and the captain asked the first officer to help him. Both flight crew then attempted forcefully push the nose down. The nose continued to pitch up to 54° and the stall warning horn sounded. The aircraft's nose dropped and it rolled 127° to the left. The airplane?s roll attitude then stabilized at about 20º left wing down; the pitch attitude began to increase. About 08:47:24 the airplane rolled right through wings level, and the pitch attitude increased to about -5º. The nose dropped again and the airplane struck a US Airways maintenance hangar and came to rest about 1650 feet east of the runway 18R centerline and about 7600 feet beyond the runway 18R threshold. It appeared that, aside from the limit nose down elevator travel, the aircraft had an excessive aft center of gravity due to substantially inaccurate weight and balance calculations.