Eastham Complaint Alleges Runaway Premier 1A Trim

By: Matt Thurber

February 4, 2010
Aircraft

Eastham Aviation, a Houston owner of a Hawker Beechcraft Premier 1A, filed a complaint against Hawker Beechcraft on January 19, asking for the manufacturer to take back the jet because of three alleged and irreparable instances of runaway rudder trim. Eastham purchased the jet in 2006.

The alleged runaway rudder trim incidents occurred in November and December 2009, and twice Hawker Beechcraft technicians conducted extensive repairs to solve the problem, according to the lawsuit. “[Hawker Beechcraft] identified no definitive or probable cause for the rudder trim malfunction,” according to a statement from Eastham’s law firm, Coats & Evans.

“Given [Hawker Beechcraft’s] inability to identify the cause of the repeated rudder trim runaways, and the potential for such a runaway to cause a catastrophic loss of control of the Premier, Eastham has decided to ground the Premier unless and until the cause of the rudder trim runaways can be identified and fixed. The Eastham complaint alleges that Hawker Beechcraft has “experienced a runaway [rudder] trim malfunction in at least one other Premier type aircraft.

AIN was unable to locate any records of reported rudder trim malfunctions in the FAA’s Service Difficulty Reports database.

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