Hoping to save money, Pan American Airways offered to become Lockheed's second customer if they would attach the surplus SC1 Wasps engines they [Pan Am] had. An agreement was reached and the first 10C, 1004, rolled out of the factor and was delivered to Pan Am with the registration NC14257. Eight Lockheed Electra 10C's were ever built.
After acquiring their first Electra, Pan Am placed the aircraft in their subsidiary airline, Aerovias Centrales, located down in Mexico where the registration was changed to XA-BEM.
XA-BEM outside Grand Central Air Terminal, Los Angeles, CA, 1934
route map of Aerovias Centrales with an illustration of 1004 on the cover of the timetable (courtesy of https://www.timetableimages.com/)
At some point the Electra changed hands and began serving Cia Mexicana de Aviacion. (Mexicana had ties to Pan Am after Juan Trippe, founder of Pan Am, bough much of the airline's stock in 1929.) Towards the end of the 1930's the Electra was purchased by another Pan Am subsidiary, Cia Nacional Cubana de Aviacion, where the registration was changed to NM-17.
One of Cubana's Electra's near the new tower at Havana airport
1940 timetable image courtesy of https://www.timetableimages.com/)
On April 17, 1946, while we have been unable to find any descriptive details, 1004 was irreparably damaged in a wheels-up landing at Baracoa, Cuba; damaged both propellers and the fuselage of the aircraft.
