FTW99LA140 · Air Tractor AT-301
Flying V Air Service Air Tractor AT-301 · Accident: in flight collision with object during initial climb
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW99LA140
- 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-301
- Aircraft type
- Air Tractor AT-301
- 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
- N4329S
- Operator
- Flying V Air Service
- 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
- 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
- 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 › Checklist, not used
- Pilot in command › Lowering of flaps, not performed
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Brownwood, TX, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated that during the 3 weeks prior to the accident, he had averaged 15-hour work days. On the day of the accident, the pilot's first flight, which was a ferry flight to the airstrip, commenced at 0600. At 0722, he began the aerial application flights. At 1203, the airplane returned from the 20th application flight and was refueled. During the refueling, the pilot retracted the flaps to 'improve the footing' of the person who was fueling the left main fuel tank. The pilot stated that he did not extend the flaps prior to the 21st takeoff, and he did not use a checklist. The pilot stated that after takeoff the 'airplane wouldn't climb.' The airplane impacted trees during the initial climb after takeoff. The airplane flight manual requires that the flaps be extended 10 degrees prior to takeoff with a full hopper load or from a 'short' runway. The flap actuator jack screw and ball nut assembly were examined, and the ball nut was observed within 1/4 inch of the large gear-box ball bearing on the jack screw. This finding is consistent with the flaps being in the retracted position.
Probable cause
The failure of the pilot-in-command to use the manufacturer's published checklist and extend the flaps prior to takeoff. A factor was the pilot's fatigued physiological condition as a result of extended flight and ground duty hours.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW99LA140
- Event ID
- 20001212X18775
- Case number
- FTW99LA140
- 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: 271351301707186bbd33344d2868f7fe04ffd3fbc3c14729ee9fed6f6e14ab12; retrieved 2026-09-21T20:32:29.762Z.