FTW97LA127 · Air Tractor AT-402
Air Tractor AT-402 · Accident: in flight collision with object while maneuvering
From 5AR3 · WABBASEKA, AR to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW97LA127
- 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
- 1 · 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-402
- Aircraft type
- Air Tractor AT-402
- 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
- N1524R
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 5AR3 · WABBASEKA, ARTo 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
- 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
- Tower
- 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
- Pilot in command › Clearance, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The agricultural airplane was being flown to a field of winter wheat for application of fertilizer. When it was about 1/4 mile north of the field, the right wing of the airplane impacted an antenna tower. The outboard section of the right wing was severed by the impact, and the airplane then entered an uncontrolled descent and collided with the ground. According to the operator, the pilot was familiar with the area and had worked this field previously. Toxicology tests of the pilot's blood showed 0.642 mcg/ml fluoxetine (Prozac, an antidepressant), 0.676 mcg/ml norfluoxetine (metabolite of fluoxetine), and an undetermined amount of tetrahydrocannabinol carboxylic acid (metabolite of marihuana) and phenylpropanolamine. Tests of his urine showed 0.020 mcg/ml tetrahydrocannabinol carboxylic acid and an undetermined amount of fluoxetine and norfluoxetine. Fluoxetine was not approved by the FAA for this pilot's use while flying.
Probable cause
failure of the pilot to see-and-avoid the tower. The proximity of the tower was a related factor.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW97LA127
- Event ID
- 20001208X07536
- Case number
- FTW97LA127
- 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: 51c870be3274951d74063f7775416a3355f5e7a2508a9c43cd6b73d631a6ec8a; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:01:30.011Z.