LAX98TA251 · Aero Commander 690
BLM, U.S. Dept of Interior Aero Commander 690 · Accident: airframe, component or system failure while taxiing
From Ely Airport Yelland Field (ELY) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX98TA251
- 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
Aero Commander 690
- Aircraft type
- Aero Commander 690
- 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
- N349AC
- Operator
- BLM, U.S. Dept of Interior
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Ely Airport Yelland Field (ELY)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
- Taxi · to runway
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Landing gear, tire › Pressure excessive
- Miscellaneous, bolt/nut/fastener/clamp/spring › Overload
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the pilot and observer's statements, they were taxing out for departure when the left main wheel came off its axle. As the strut grounded on the taxiway, the left rear wing spar was fractured and fuselage crown skin wrinkled. Examination of the aircraft revealed that the left wheel was separated into its two halves and the tire had come off the wheel. All ten nuts were stripped off the bolts that hold the wheel halves together. The air pressure in the right tire was measured with a gage that only goes to 125 psi; the pressure in the tire pegged the gage at that value. According to the aircraft's flight manual, the maximum main landing gear tire pressure should be 60 psi.
Probable cause
The failure and separation of the left main gear wheel halves due to overload as a result of excessive air pressure. A contributing factor was the inadequate maintenance/service of the main gear tires.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX98TA251
- Event ID
- 20001211X10649
- Case number
- LAX98TA251
- 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: f0a7b43e9169bf9a00e14ed70f39e6c49465eb9133f5884be628244185efa8a3; retrieved 2026-09-22T17:18:16.650Z.