Pacific Southwest Airlines British Aerospace BA146-200A accident
British Aerospace BA146-200A · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) to Reno Tahoe International Airport (RNO)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX87FA128
- 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
- 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
British Aerospace BA146-200A
- Aircraft type
- British Aerospace BA146
- 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
- N356PS
- Operator
- Pacific Southwest Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), Los Angeles, CATo Reno Tahoe International Airport (RNO), Reno, NV
- 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 · 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
- Company maintenance personnel › Maintenance, inadequate
- Fluid, oil › Contamination
- Lubricating system › Contamination
- Turbine assembly, shaft bearing › Failure, total
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE FLIGHT WAS UNEVENTFUL DURING TAKEOFF AND CLIMB TO AN ASSIGNED CRUISE ALTITUDE OF FL260. APPROXIMATELY 40 MINUTES AFTER TAKEOFF THE NUMBER 3 ENGINE EXPERIENCED AN UNCONTAINED FAILURE OF THE TURBINE BLADES ON THE NUMBER 4 POWER TURBINE WHEEL. ALTHOUGH DEBRIS FROM THE ENGINE PENETRATED THE PRESSURE VESSEL, THE PILOT MADE AN UNSCHEDULED LANDING AT AN AIRPORT WITHOUT FURTHER INCIDENT. EXAMINATION OF THE ENGINE REVEALED THAT FERROUS CHIPS WERE CONTAMINATING, AND OIL WAS BYPASSING THE ENGINE OIL FILTER FOR AT LEAST 40 DAYS. HOWEVER, NO CORRECTIVE ACTION WAS TAKEN BY COMPANY MAINTENANCE PERSONNEL. THE OIL AND FILTER WERE CHANGED THREE TIMES IN THE THREE MONTHS PREVIOUS TO THE ACCIDENT. THE EXAM REVEALED THAT THE CONTAMINATED OIL CONTRIBUTED TO THE FAILURE OF THE NUMBER FOUR TURBINE BEARING SUBSEQUENTLY LEADING TO OVERHEATING AND DAMAGE TO THE OVERSPEED SENSORS. THE TURBINE OVERSPED AND THE TURBINE BLADES DEPARTED THE TURBINE DISC.
Probable cause
FAILURE OF COMPANY MAINTENANCE PERSONNEL TO ADEQUATELY EXAMINE THE ENGINE LUBRICATION SYSTEM WHEN CONTAMINATION WAS DETECTED.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX87FA128
- Event ID
- 20001213X30257
- Case number
- LAX87FA128
- 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 1987-02-28.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 730102ebda27b4cc6a98eaaf8cc65179b34eb9251fdd402da7dce8d5d7bf3088; retrieved 2026-09-18T19:42:46.499Z.