Casino Express Boeing 737-200 incident
Boeing 737-200 · Incident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From Portland International Airport (PDX) to Elko Regional Airport (EKO)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX95IA229
- 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
- Incident
- 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
- Airline
- 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 737-200
- Aircraft type
- Boeing 737
- 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
- N457TM
- Operator
- Casino Express
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Portland International Airport (PDX), Portland, ORTo Elko Regional Airport (EKO)
- 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 121: Air Carrier
- 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 · descent
- 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Minor
Cause areas
- Flight control, aileron surface › Debonded
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, major repair, improper
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Elko, NV, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE CREW EXPERIENCED AN UNUSUAL VIBRATION WHILE DESCENDING THROUGH FL250. THEY REDUCED SPEED AND THE VIBRATION DECREASED. A FLIGHT ATTENDANT REPORTED THAT PART OF THE RIGHT WING WAS MISSING. THE AIRCRAFT LANDED WITHOUT FURTHER INCIDENT. EXAMINATION OF THE AIRCRAFT INDICATED THAT 1.5 FEET OF THE RIGHT AILERON HAD SEPARATED IN FLIGHT. THIS AILERON UNDERWENT A MAJOR REPAIR IN 1990 INVOLVING SKIN AND CORE REPLACEMENT. IT WAS INSTALLED ON THE AIRCRAFT IN 1992 WITHOUT FURTHER WORK DONE ON IT. EXAMINATION OF THE AILERON REVEALED VERY LITTLE FLOW OF THE ADHESIVE BETWEEN THE SKIN AND THE CORE, POSSIBLY DUE TO USE OF AN ADHESIVE BEYOND ITS SHELF LIFE.
Probable cause
in-flight separation of the aileron as a result of inadequate bonding.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX95IA229
- Event ID
- 20001207X03734
- Case number
- LAX95IA229
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (5)
- 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: baa61ecd80b068498b2e8ccd05fd725aa9e96d5265dee203f9d0275356de90ee; retrieved 2026-09-18T17:59:40.971Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N457TM; the operator shown is the name the NTSB records it doing business as.