[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8] The aircraft had been chartered to transport the Michigan Wolverines men's basketball team to the Big Ten tournament in Washington, D.C. for the following day's game against the Illinois Fighting Illini.

[1]: 1, 6, 22 Hours before the accident, the air traffic control tower at Willow Run Airport had been evacuated due to high winds.

[1]: 14 [8] As a result, the flight crew of Flight 9363 obtained weather information from alternate sources, contacting company operations personnel for a temperature setting, and calling the nearby Detroit Metropolitan Airport on one of the pilots' cell phones to get the current weather information at the latter airport.

[1]: 32, 52  The flight crew modified their planned takeoff to protect against the danger of wind shear, selecting a higher rotation speed than would otherwise be prescribed.

[1]: 122–124 [8] Flight 9363 taxied uneventfully to runway 23L, and received its takeoff clearance from Detroit Metropolitan via cell phone due to the lack of ATC services at Willow Run.

The check airman acting as pilot in command, 41-year-old Andreas Gruseus, directed the captain, 54-year-old Mark Radloff,[6][13] to begin the takeoff roll, which began at 14:51:12 EST.

Judging the aircraft to be incapable of flight, the captain performed a rejected takeoff, immediately applying maximum braking followed by spoilers and reverse thrust.

Constructed at Long Beach Airport, it was first delivered to Avianca on 14 April 1992 on lease from GECAS with Irish registration EI-CEQ.

During takeoff, the pilot's commands through the control column, via the system of three servo tabs, ultimately moves the elevator into a trailing-edge-up (TEU) position.

This system is designed to withstand high-speed airflow from straight ahead during flight, but strong forces from other directions can overcome the shock absorbers.

[1]: 12 When the aircraft was inspected on site following the accident, the right elevator was found to be jammed in a full trailing-edge-down (TED) position slightly beyond its normal limit of motion, and could not be moved by hand.

[1]: 33  Measurement equipment at Willow Run recorded maximum wind gusts of 55 knots (63 mph; 102 km/h), below both thresholds.

[1][18] By the next time the aircraft was powered up, at 12:38 on the day of the accident, the right elevator was already at the full trailing-edge-down position, and remained there in all elevator-position data recorded during the preparations for the flight to Dulles.

[1][f] In contrast, the left elevator moved several times throughout its full range of motion under the influence of ground winds.

The aircraft was unable to rotate off the runway, and the flight crew were forced to reject the takeoff at very high speed.

[1]: 23–24, 55 [21] To determine whether this theory was possible, the NTSB performed a series of static and dynamic load tests on the accident aircraft's undamaged horizontal stabilizers and left elevator.

The tests, conducted at a Boeing laboratory in Huntington Beach, California, simulated the wind conditions calculated by the CFD analysis.

The static tests consisted of hanging weights from the elevator while in its trailing-edge-down position, simulating constant wind speeds.

This secondary stop would physically prevent the elevator from moving far enough past its limits to allow the geared-tab linkages to become locked in an overcenter configuration.

[1]: 48  The NTSB recommended that Boeing finalize and fully implement these changes, and also develop a means for DC-9 flight crews to detect an elevator jam before attempting to take off.