LAX99LA075 · Hanson HANSON TAILWIND W-8 HANSON TAI
Hanson HANSON TAILWIND W-8 HANSON TAI · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Brown Field Municipal Airport (SDM) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX99LA075
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Completed
- API-reported fatalities
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- General aviation
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Hanson HANSON TAILWIND W-8 HANSON TAI
- Aircraft type
- Hanson TAILWIND W-8
- Category
- Airplane
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- N8188
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Brown Field Municipal Airport (SDM)To not recorded
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 91: General Aviation
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- En route · cruise
- First occurrenceThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Total loss of engine power (mechanical failure)
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Fluid, oil › Starvation
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Chula Vista, CA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported no abnormalities during the takeoff and climbout from the airport. After climbing to 4,500 feet msl to fly a northerly heading through a VFR terminal control area corridor, the pilot turned to a northeast heading and descended to 3,500 feet msl and noted that the oil temperature was at redline. He continued his descent to 3,000 feet msl and observed that the oil temperature had slightly decreased. He did note that all other instruments were indicating normal. Approximately 15 minutes after takeoff the engine stopped. The pilot made an emergency landing in an open field; the main landing gear dug into soft dirt and the aircraft vaulted vertically onto its tail and continued in a 360-degree turn before coming to rest upright on its landing gear. Examination of the engine revealed that the number 3 bearing had melted, and the associated connecting rod had separated puncturing the engine case. The engine showed evidence of a lack of lubrication. According to the engine manufacturer representative this engine was manufactured in the 1940's as a ground power unit only and was never intended for aircraft use.
Probable cause
The loss of lubrication to the number 3 rod bearing and the resulting failure of the number 3 connecting rod. A contributing factor to the accident was the soft terrain at the accident location.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX99LA075
- Event ID
- 20001204X00080
- Case number
- LAX99LA075
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (4)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 457d189773bd29d01bd4383b91d84cb88e1d1a0bc18d3062ac8e4f02ed9252ad; retrieved 2026-09-22T16:00:09.405Z.