South Aero Service Cessna 401 accident
Cessna 401 · Accident: explosion en route
From LAS · Las Vegas, NM to Albuquerque International Sunport (ABQ)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's departure or destination. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA87MA018
- 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
- 2 · 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
Cessna 401
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 401
- 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
- N3219Q
- Operator
- South Aero Service
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route Narrative disagrees
- From LAS · Las Vegas, NMTo Albuquerque International Sunport (ABQ), Albuquerque, NM
- 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
- En route · climb to 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
- Explosion
- 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 › Fire
- Fluid, fuel › Fumes
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
APPROXIMATELY 5 1/2 MINUTES AFTER DEPARTURE AND WHILE THE AIRCRAFT WAS CLIMBING ENROUTE, AN UNKNOWN IGNITION SOURCE TRIGGERED AN EXPLOSION OF FUEL/AIR VAPOR WHICH EXISTED WITHIN THE INTERIOR OF THE LEFT WING. WING SKIN FROM THE UPPER/LOWER WING SURFACE WAS LOST, HOWEVER, THE WING STRUCTURE REMAINED INTEGRAL AND THE PILOTS CONTINUED TO FLY THE AIRCRAFT EXECUTING A 180 DEGREE COURSE REVERSAL BACK TO MCCARRAN INTNL AIRPORT. SUBSEQUENT TO THE EXPLOSION A FIRE DEVELOPED WITHIN THE LEFT ENGINE AREA. AS THE AIRCRAFT CONTINUED BACK TOWARDS MCCARRAN THE AIRSPEED GRADUALLY DIMINISHED AND THE LANDING GEAR WERE LOWERED. SHORTLY THEREAFTER THE LEFT WING ENTERED A STALL CONDITION BROUGHT ABOUT BY A DECREASE OF AIRSPEED AS WELL AS THE DEGRADATION OF ITS LIFT DEVELOPING CAPABILITIES DUE TO THE EXPLOSION INDUCED DAMAGE. THE AIRCRAFT THEN ENTERED AN UNCONTROLLABLE LEFT ROLL SEVERAL HUNDRED FEET ABOVE GROUND FROM WHICH A SUCCESSFUL RECOVERY COULD NOT BE EXECUTED.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA87MA018
- Event ID
- 20001213X35286
- Case number
- SEA87MA018
- 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: 080f868c5b0973fc1f9141dda0d54a4dc0b2c14a7a4761cfffa29a80cf23562e; retrieved 2026-09-18T14:16:51.706Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N3219Q; the operator shown is the name the NTSB records it doing business as.