Borrego Springs Airline Swearingen SA-226TC accident
Swearingen SA-226TC · Accident: fire/explosion while standing
From Palm Springs International Airport (PSP) to Los Angeles International Airport (LAX)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX83FA002
- 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
Swearingen SA-226TC
- Aircraft type
- 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
- N63SA
- Operator
- Borrego Springs Airline
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Palm Springs International Airport (PSP), Palm Springs, CATo Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), Los Angeles, 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
- Standing · engine(s) operating
- 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
- Fire/explosion
- 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
- Fuselage, instrument/electrical panel › Burned
- Hydraulic system, line › Burned
- Hydraulic system, line › Contamination
- Hydraulic system, line › Dumped
- Hydraulic system, line › Failure, partial
- Hydraulic system, line › Leak
- Instrument light(s) › Arcing
- Instrument light(s) › Contamination
- Oxygen system, crew › Exploded
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
WHILE AT THE GATE WITH THE PASSENGERS SEATED & THE ENGINES RUNNING, THE COPILOT ATTEMPTED TO TURN UP HIS PANEL LIGHTS WITH THE RHEOSTAT LOCATED ON THE FAR RIGHT FORWARD PORTION OF THE SIDE ELECTRICAL PANEL. AT THAT INSTANT SMOKE BEGAN TO ERUPT AT HIS RIGHT KNEE POSITION. THE PASSENGERS WERE EVACUATED & THE COCKPIT FIRE WAS PUT OUT BY THE GROUND CREW. THE RHEOSTAT WAS FOUND TO BE CONTAMINATED WITH HYDRAULIC FLUID, & HEAVY ARCING WAS FOUND ON THE RHEOSTAT AT THE FULL HIGH POSITION. THREE HYDRAULIC LINES WERE FOUND TO BE BURNED IN HALF FORWARD & UNDER THE CIRCUIT BREAKER PANEL ACCESS DOOR. EXAMINATION OF THE HYDRAULIC BRAKE LINE REVEALED STRESS CRACKS DUE TO CHEMICAL CONTAMINATION OR FATIGUE, PERMITTING BRAKE FLUID TO ESCAPE INTO THE SURROUNDING AREA. THE BRAKE FLUID WAS IGNITED BY THE ARCING COPILOT'S RHEOSTAT, & THE FIRE REACHED AN OXYGEN LINE WITHIN SECONDS CAUSING A BLOW-OUT HOLE THRU THE FUSELAGE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX83FA002
- Event ID
- 20020917X04780
- Case number
- LAX83FA002
- 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 1982-10-16.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 17da446392a61d62203a0aa54d0b7dd804af6a00f2e980bbb4d16809e08b2ea8; retrieved 2026-09-18T21:05:42.942Z.