LAX95TA304 · Douglas C-54G
California Dept. of Forestry Douglas C-54G · Accident: in flight collision with object while maneuvering
From Fresno Yosemite International Airport (FAT) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX95TA304
- 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
- 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
Douglas C-54G
- Aircraft type
- Douglas C-54
- 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
- N2742G
- Operator
- California Dept. of Forestry
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Fresno Yosemite International Airport (FAT), Fresno, CATo not recorded
- 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 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
- Maneuvering · aerial application
- 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 object
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Wire, static
- 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
- Pilot in command › Visual lookout, inadequate
Not plotted · Location withheld: coordinates are missing, conflicting, invalid, or have no accepted acquisition method. No substitute location has been invented.
NTSB narrative
The tanker pilot was approaching the drop area when the copilot saw some static lines in front of the windscreen and alerted the pilot flying the aircraft. The pilot then dove below the lines before collided with them, severing the top 1/3 of the vertical stabilizer. Visibility was reported by those in the operation as good with some smoke from the fire which they considered not a factor. All pilots were advised of wires in the area and some had the lower set of lines in view. None of the pilots involved in the operation were aware of the higher set of lines 150 feet above the lower set, which were 140 feet above the ground. The other pilots following the accident aircraft, now aware of the higher lines, flew below these wires. This was the accident pilot's third pass over the fire area and the pilot was aware of the general terrain from previous operations. These unmarked transmission lines are depicted on the terrain map. However, the height of these lines was not passed on to the pilots, nor did the lead pilot see the higher lines along the tanker's route of flight when he made a clearing pass over the area just before the collision.
Probable cause
failure of the pilot to see and avoid known obstacles along his route of flight. Contributing was the insufficient information given by the pilot in the lead aircraft.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX95TA304
- Event ID
- 20001207X04312
- Case number
- LAX95TA304
- 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: 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: cff1f054e6dfb87f34f43897cfa9a034f262b24acd1f3527adfec93c759682e3; retrieved 2026-09-22T23:21:51.724Z.