FTW97LA225 · Air Tractor AT-502A
Air Tractor AT-502A · Accident: propeller failure/malfunction during landing
From No airport to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW97LA225
- 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-502A
- Aircraft type
- Air Tractor AT-502
- 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
- N248LF
- 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
- Landing · landing roll
- 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
- Propeller failure/malfunction
- 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
- Propeller system/accessories, reversing system › Undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
After landing about 200 feet beyond the approach end of the 2,600 foot runway, the pilot attempted to apply reverse power, 'but did not receive any reversing action.' After attempting full reverse, 'the prop sounded like it was going to flat pitch.' In an attempt to 'go around,' the pilot pushed the power lever to full forward, but did not get any response. Another attempt was made to apply reverse with no response. Approaching the departure end of the runway, the pilot applied left brake and intentionally ground looped the airplane to avoid hitting parked trucks adjacent to the end of the runway. Subsequently, the right main landing gear sheared and the airplane skidded into a ditch. External examination of the engine, engine accessory gearbox, and propeller assemblies did not reveal any obvious preimpact anomalies. No oil leaks were found in the propeller piston or the propeller governor assembly. All cockpit power control quadrant linkages were intact, and the reverse detent on the thrust lever operated normally when cycled. Teardown examination of the propeller assembly did not reveal any defects. The propeller governor did not show any abnormality during functional bench tests.
Probable cause
an undetermined malfunction/failure of the propeller reversing system.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW97LA225
- Event ID
- 20001208X08124
- Case number
- FTW97LA225
- 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: 4dd62deb8ff859ffa47e4585e07e40fcce7f781b559c982af1bf765dacc74071; retrieved 2026-09-22T19:28:19.652Z.