CHI96LA247 · Grumman-Schweizer G-164A
Root Spraying Service Grumman-Schweizer G-164A · Accident: loss of engine power en route
From Dighton Airport (K65) to Dighton Airport (K65)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI96LA247
- 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
Grumman-Schweizer G-164A
- Aircraft type
- Grumman Schweizer G-164
- 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
- N9544
- Operator
- Root Spraying Service
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Dighton Airport (K65)To Dighton Airport (K65)
- 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
- En route · cruise
- 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
- Loss of engine power
- 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
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Shortly after takeoff, while en route to conduct aerial application, the pilot noticed a loss in altitude. He advanced the throttle for full power and dumped the chemical load; however, the airplane continued descending and impacted terrain. An examination of the engine revealed no mechanical malfunction that would have resulted in a partial power loss. The reported temperature and density altitude were 86 degrees and 5175 feet.
Probable cause
loss of engine power for undetermined reason(s). The crop and soft terrain in the emergency landing area were related factors.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI96LA247
- Event ID
- 20001208X06184
- Case number
- CHI96LA247
- 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 1996-07-20.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 9d24cb5513c74e3114f8e246689c5908bd4b631d17674bd516b4bb253be3f69b; retrieved 2026-09-21T21:39:19.241Z.