From the time the first officer called "rotate" until the impact, the captain repeated the word "pull" about 27 times. When the observer pilot asked, "Come back on the trim?" the captain responded, "There's nothing anymore on the trim." The inspection of the airplane revealed that the elevator trim cables were rigged improperly, which resulted in the trim cables being reversed. As a result, when the pilot applied nose-up trim, the elevator trim system actually applied nose-down trim. An examination of the maintenance instruction cards used to conduct the last inspection revealed that the inspector's block on numerous checks were not signed off by the Required Inspection Item (RII) inspector. The RII inspector did not sign the item that stated: "Connect elevator servo trim tab cables and rig in accordance with Allison Convair [maintenance manual]...” The item had been signed off by the mechanic, but not by the RII inspector. The card also contained a NOTE, which stated in bold type, "A complete inspection of all elevator controls must be accomplished and signed off by an RII qualified inspector and a logbook entry made to this effect." The RII inspector block was not signed off. The National Transportation Safety Board determines the probable cause(s) of this accident as follows: The improper (reverse) rigging of the elevator trim cables by company maintenance personnel, and their subsequent failure to discover the misrigging during required post-maintenance checks. Contributing to the accident was the captain's inadequate post-maintenance preflight check and the flight crew's improper response to the trim problem. During the civil cases filed by the pilots’ families, it was discovered that the maintenance work card for the installation of the trim tab and rigging were properly signed by the mechanics and the inspector. The results of this card, were improperly transferred to the control sheet used by the company to track the completion of required checks. This control sheet also required the inspector's initials, it was this control sheet that was missing the required inspector initials. It was also discovered that at least four other incidents of improper (reverse) mis-rigging had occurred with other operators of Convair aircraft, including one case with the now manufacture of the aircraft. The manufacture subsequently issued a Service Bulletin (SB 340-27-001) requiring placards to safeguard against improper (reverse) rigging of the elevator trim cables in the future. The pilots’ families sued the manufacture for improperly notifying Air Tahoma of the known mis-rigging issue with the Convair.