WPR14LA096 · Morrisey 2150
Morrisey 2150 · Accident: part(s) separation from aircraft en route
From Santa Maria Public Airport Captain G Allan Hancock Field (SMX) to Santa Maria Public Airport Captain G Allan Hancock Field (SMX)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR14LA096
- 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
- Unknown
- 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
Morrisey 2150
- Aircraft type
- Morrisey 2150
- 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
- N5102V
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Santa Maria Public Airport Captain G Allan Hancock Field (SMX), Santa Maria, CATo Santa Maria Public Airport Captain G Allan Hancock Field (SMX), Santa Maria, CA
- Aircraft age
- About 56 years (built 1958)
- 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
- Defining eventThe 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
- Part(s) separation from aircraft
- 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
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Radar data indicated that the airplane took off, performed a touch-and-go landing, and departed westbound toward the ocean. After crossing the shoreline, the airplane turned right about 90 degrees and flew northbound over the water. The airplane climbed to an altitude of about 4,300 feet and then descended to 3,700 feet. The last three radar hits were recorded over a period of 14 seconds and indicated that the airplane entered a steep descent at a rate that exceeded 10,000 feet per minute before it impacted the water. One witness reported that she saw a "streak" descending toward the water followed by a "big bang." Another witness reported observing the airplane falling toward the water with what "appeared to be a wing" trailing behind it. He estimated that the airplane and the separated wing fell for about 10 seconds before they hit the water. The airplane wreckage was not recovered.
Probable cause
The in-flight separation of a wing for reasons that could not be determined because the wreckage was not recovered from the ocean.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR14LA096
- Event ID
- 20140114X32510
- Case number
- WPR14LA096
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
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: investigation status, coordinates. 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: 0bc6b69e97f5ac661bc8d1a9e6d1904fd89dc0b3532d6c33e933257e32b3319e; retrieved 2026-09-14T16:09:42.728Z.