FTW97LA245 · Air Tractor AT-400A
Air Tractor AT-400A · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From LA (no airport) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW97LA245
- 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-400A
- Aircraft type
- Air Tractor AT-400
- 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
- N36538
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From LA (no airport)To 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
- Initial climb
- 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 control in flight
- 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
- Stall/mush
- 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 › Short field takeoff/procedure, not followed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that he was departing to the north using full power with 2,230 pounds of fertilizer on board. He further reported that: 'I started my takeoff roll with 10 degrees [of] flaps and increased [them] to 30 degrees further down the strip. As I got to the end of the strip I had to pull the plane off to clear a large levee, after which it settled back down to the ground.' The pilot stated that 'as the end of the runway came closer, I felt like I was over gross.' The FAA Inspectors reported that they were unable to determine the actual weight of the airplane at the time of its takeoff roll. The airplane had a different model engine on it then when it left the factory; no paperwork was located in the airplane for the modification nor the new weight limitations. An Air Tractor manufacturer's representative reported that a normal takeoff in an AT-400A is performed with the flaps in the up position. The representative further stated that 'takeoffs from short strips with heavy loads should be performed with the flaps set at 10 degrees.' The representative reported that 'no other takeoff configuration for the flaps is authorized in the airplane's operating procedures.'
Probable cause
The pilot's improperly performed short field takeoff procedures.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW97LA245
- Event ID
- 20001208X08141
- Case number
- FTW97LA245
- 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: ae4b67728d802b1bc1ec8dd021630e58de04e5f3fa10289c2390693a6e62d6a4; retrieved 2026-09-22T19:29:00.082Z.