[1] At 16:05:35, Captain May said, "let's take it off," with First Officer Loeffler replying, "can't control this thing, Ron."

About 2 seconds after take off, the stick-shaker activated, warning the flight crew that the aircraft was in danger of stalling.

"[1]: 9  While examining the wreckage, investigators discovered a foreign object lodged in between the right elevator and the right horizontal stabilizer.

The restriction to elevator movement, caused by a highly unusual and unknown condition, was not detected by the crew in time to reject the take off successfully; however, an apparent lack of crew responsiveness to a highly unusual emergency situation, coupled with the captain's failure to monitor adequately the take off, contributed to the failure to reject the take off.

[1]: 20 After the accident, the Federal Aviation Administration instituted new time minima between aircraft in line-up for take off.

[1]: 20–22 [2] This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the National Transportation Safety Board.