LAX95LA127 · Boeing B75N1
Stearman Flight Center Boeing B75N1 · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Santa Paula Airport (SZP) to SMR · Santa Maria, CA
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX95LA127
- 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
Boeing B75N1
- Aircraft type
- Boeing B75
- 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
- N450SR
- Operator
- Stearman Flight Center
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Santa Paula Airport (SZP), Santa Paula, CATo SMR · Santa Maria, CA
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Flight into adverse weather, intentional
- Pilot in command › Maintenance, service of aircraft/equipment, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE FLIGHT STARTED FROM CHINO, CALIFORNIA, TO SANTA MARIA, CALIFORNIA. THE PILOTS REFUELED AT SANTA PAULA, CALIFORNIA, AND HAD OBTAINED A WEATHER BRIEFING FOR SANTA BARBARA AND SANTA MARIA. AT THE TIME OF THE BRIEFING, THEY WERE GIVEN THE 1350 HOURS SCHEDULED OBSERVATION. SANTA BARBARA WAS REPORTING 2,500 SCATTERED, AND MEASURED 4,700 OVERCAST. ABOUT THE TIME OF THE ACCIDENT AT 1615, SANTA BARBARA WAS REPORTING MEASURED 800 FEET OVERCAST, 2 MILES VISIBILITY, WITH LIGHT RAIN AND FOG. AT THE ACCIDENT SITE A HIGHWAY PATROL OFFICER REPORTED THE WEATHER WAS 700 OVERCAST, 1.5 MILES VISIBILITY, WITH MOUNTAIN TOPS OBSCURED AND LIGHT RAIN. THE PILOT REPORTED THAT HE EXPERIENCED CARBURETOR ICING AND LOST POWER. HE CRASH LANDED ON A MAJOR HIGHWAY MEDIAN. POSTACCIDENT EXAMINATION FOUND AN IMPROPER CARBURETOR HEAT CONTROL, BROKEN AIRBOX WITH MISSING HARDWARE, AND A COLLAPSED AIR INTAKE DUCT TO THE AIRBOX.
Probable cause
inadequate maintenance and service of the aircraft's carburetor heat system, and the pilot's intentional flight into adverse weather conditions. The lack of a suitable area for the emergency landing was a factor.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX95LA127
- Event ID
- 20001207X03142
- Case number
- LAX95LA127
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1995-03-05.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 2dcd5bbd5052df960d00a859a1b60c2cd85de82ebc27a9c518fed2fc62ed21c4; retrieved 2026-09-23T00:11:33.921Z.