Wings West Airlines Fairchild Swearingen SA-226TC accident
Fairchild Swearingen SA-226TC · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water during landing
From Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) to Santa Barbara Municipal Airport (SBA)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX87FA028
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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
Fairchild Swearingen SA-226TC
- Aircraft type
- Fairchild Swearingen SA-226
- 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
- N137WW
- Operator
- Wings West Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), Los Angeles, CATo Santa Barbara Municipal Airport (SBA), Santa Barbara, 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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
- Landing · flare/touchdown
- 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
- In flight collision with terrain/water
- 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
- Copilot/second pilot › Checklist, inattentive
- Copilot/second pilot › Wheels up landing, inadvertent
- Pilot in command › Checklist, not followed
- Pilot in command › Gear extension, not performed
- Pilot in command › Supervision, inadequate
- Warning system(other) › Disabled
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
ON A DARK NIGHT, IN CAVU WEATHER, THE CAPTAIN DIRECTED THE FIRST OFFICER (WHO WAS FLYING) TO DISARM THE LANDING GEAR WARNING HORN SYSTEM BY PULLING ITS CIRCUIT BREAKER. THE F/O COMPLIED & DID NOT CHALLENGE THE CAPTAIN. ON FINAL APPROACH THE F/O FAILED TO CHECK THAT HIS 'GEAR DOWN' COMMAND WAS COMPLIED WITH & THE CAPTAIN FORGOT TO LOWER THE GEAR. AS THE ACFT SLID TO A STOP ON ITS BELLY THE RIGHT ENGINE'S 3 PROP BLADES FRAGMENTED & PUNCTURED THE PASSENGER COMPARTMENT. THE 2 PAX WHO WERE SEATED IN ROW 2 ABEAM THE BLADES' PLANE OF ROTATION WERE STRUCK BY FRAGMENTS & RECEIVED SERIOUS LEG & MINOR FACIAL LACERATIONS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX87FA028
- Event ID
- 20001213X34975
- Case number
- LAX87FA028
- 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 1986-10-31.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 5154b8c07d9eb319e61bca22334b484935e497abc23dea539e155efaced4dcf2; retrieved 2026-09-18T19:50:54.765Z.