LAX90DUD01 · Wheeler Acft. Co. EXPRESS 100 EXPRESS 10
Wheeler Acft. Co. EXPRESS 100 EXPRESS 10 · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Santa Monica Municipal Airport (SMO) to San Gabriel Valley Airport (EMT)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX90DUD01
- 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
Wheeler Acft. Co. EXPRESS 100 EXPRESS 10
- Aircraft type
- Wheeler EXPRESS 100
- 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
- N200EX
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Santa Monica Municipal Airport (SMO), Santa Monica, CATo San Gabriel Valley Airport (EMT), El Monte, 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Engine assembly, piston › Worn
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE ENGINE ON THE AIRCRAFT FAILED DURING CRUISE FLIGHT ABOUT 10 MILES EAST OF THE DEPARTURE AIRPORT. THE PILOT WAS UNABLE TO EXTEND HIS GLIDE AND WAS FORCED TO LAND INTO A RESIDENTIAL AREA COLLIDING WITH SEVERAL HOMES. THE PISTON PIN PLUG IN ONE CYLINDER HAD WORN AWAY DAMAGING THE PISTON. THE CONNECTING RODS HAD THEIR BEARINGS WORN AWAY AND ONE CONNECTING ROD WAS FOUND BROKEN AT THE LOWER END.
Probable cause
THE MECHANICAL FAILURE OF THE ENGINE DUE TO THE WEARING AWAY OF THE PISTON PIN PLUG, CONNECTING ROD BEARINGS, AND THE BREAKAGE OF THE CONNECTING ROD AT THE LOWER END. CONTRIBUTING TO THE SEVERITY OF THE ACCIDENT WAS THE FORCED LANDING INTO A RESIDENTIAL AREA AS THE ONLY LANDING SITE IMMEDIATELY AVAILABLE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX90DUD01
- Event ID
- 20001213X29617
- Case number
- LAX90DUD01
- 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 1989-10-27.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 996ab5392b3e4367a1b66612d0eba4c26f4ac44f400fcf28c9276b8b473ccc9f; retrieved 2026-09-22T00:00:21.071Z.