FTW97FA285 · Ayres S2R-T15
Arkla Flying Service Ayres S2R-T15 · Accident: in flight collision with object en route
From 5F6 · Mer Rouge, LA to John H Hooks Jr Memorial Airport (M79)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW97FA285
- 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
Ayres S2R-T15
- Aircraft type
- Ayres S2
- 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
- N3096K
- Operator
- Arkla Flying Service
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 5F6 · Mer Rouge, LATo John H Hooks Jr Memorial Airport (M79), Rayville, LA
- 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 91: General Aviation
- 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
- 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
- Tree(s)
- 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
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During a planned 15 minute positioning flight, the agricultural airplane impacted a tree line of mature trees and dense vegetation. The energy/debris path showed that the airplane impacted into the trees at a high rate of speed in a wings level attitude. The wreckage path encompassed an area about 390 feet long and 100 feet wide. An 8 inch diameter live tree branch was found completely severed with black paint smears corresponding to the paint on the propeller blades. All adjacent quadrants of the tree line were bordered by vast open acres of cultivated fields. Evidence found at the accident site did not reveal any mechanical, powerplant, or system failures. The airplane was mostly consumed by a post impact fire. Toxicological tests were negative, and an autopsy of the pilot did not reveal conclusive evidence of incapacitation.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain clearance for undetermined reasons.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW97FA285
- Event ID
- 20001208X08359
- Case number
- FTW97FA285
- 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: cdb74acfc5c725d9ebaeb6d9438a5a867710bb0b46da2c9e7fac8aa861998386; retrieved 2026-09-20T22:52:43.771Z.