FTW96LA251 · Air Tractor AT-401
Air Tractor AT-401 · Accident: partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical) during takeoff
From No airport to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW96LA251
- 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
Air Tractor AT-401
- Aircraft type
- Air Tractor AT-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
- N1004W
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From No airportTo 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 137: Agricultural
- 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
- Takeoff · roll/run
- 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
- Partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical)
- 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
- Fuel contamination
- 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
- Fluid, fuel › Contamination
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that he had 'been operating the aircraft all day with no problems.' The airplane had landed for another load and was topped off with 60 gallons of 100LL fuel. While on the takeoff roll, the engine lost partial power. The pilot said that he estimated the engine power loss to be at about 50 percent. He 'was on a half mile airstrip with no time or field length for a shut down. I began to dump the load and tried to get [the] aircraft off [the] ground.' The aircraft continued off the departure end of the runway and impacted a dirt bank which separated the landing gear from the aircraft. The airplane's engine was recently overhauled by an FAA certified repair station. The engine was removed from the airframe and test run at the repair station. According to the repair shop, the engine 'exhibited good oil pressures and was operated through all R.P.M./performance ranges and no abnormal characteristics were observed.' The owner's representative stated in a telephone interview with the investigator-in-charge that the power loss was the result of fuel contamination.
Probable cause
The partial loss of engine power due to fuel contamination. A factor was the lack of suitable terrain available for the forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW96LA251
- Event ID
- 20001208X05973
- Case number
- FTW96LA251
- 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 1996-06-15.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 4bccec6802e7959fa53b3a857bb2b7d21396174e3a5c0f1e3113f01cec81eb77; retrieved 2026-09-22T22:14:45.235Z.