LAX98LA128 · Air Tractor AT301
Air Tractor AT301 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water during takeoff
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX98LA128
- 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 AT301
- Aircraft type
- Air Tractor AT301
- 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
- N7301P
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo 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
- Takeoff
- 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 terrain/water
- 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 › Airspeed(v1), not obtained/maintained
- Pilot in command › Proper climb rate, not obtained/maintained
- Pilot in command › Wrong runway, selected
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The operator reported that the pilot attempted an unsuccessful takeoff from a 5,280-foot dirt strip. The operator reported that after the takeoff attempt, the aircraft struck an embankment just beyond the end of the runway and came to rest in a cotton field. Reported temperature at the time of the accident was 91 degrees Fahrenheit, and the density altitude was computed at 2,300 feet. The pilot stated that the aircraft had approximately 280 to 300 gallons of pesticide onboard and full fuel. He reported that the aircraft seemed sluggish and would not lift off the runway. The pilot stated that he made an unsuccessful attempt to jettison the load prior to the collision with the berm. The pilot reported that he attempted the takeoff from runway 26. The Imperial airport, 5 miles north-northeast, was reporting winds from 120 degrees at 11 knots at the time. A witness to the accident reported that as the aircraft went by him it was very loud and sounded as if it was operating at full power. The FAA inspected the aircraft on-scene and established flight control and engine continuity. No further discrepancies were noted. The pilot stated that there were no mechanical difficulties with the aircraft.
Probable cause
The pilot's selection of the wrong runway, which resulted in a downwind takeoff attempt, and, his failure to obtain/maintain a proper airspeed during the takeoff sequence. The aircraft's gross weight and the prevailing density altitude were factors in the accident.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX98LA128
- Event ID
- 20001211X09724
- Case number
- LAX98LA128
- 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 1998-03-24.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 6c4ec94d960c8314096b7bac3deb48d1e76fd56be662839397c8ce1e75a0c592; retrieved 2026-09-22T17:56:57.579Z.