FTW00LA074 · Air Tractor AT-401
Air Tractor AT-401 · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) during initial climb
From M79 to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW00LA074
- 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-401
- Aircraft type
- Air Tractor AT-401
- 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
- N91968
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From M79To 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
- Total loss of engine power (mechanical failure)
- 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
- Engine assembly, cylinder › Cracked
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane's engine was started and allowed to operate for 45 minutes due to the cold weather (temperature 36 degrees F). The pilot taxied the airplane out to the taxiway and performed engine run-up and magneto checks. All checks were 'okay,' and the airplane was taxied to the loading area where 325 gallons of chemical were loaded. The pilot taxied the airplane to the runway and performed another engine run-up. The magneto check was 'okay,' and the oil temperature was in the green. The pilot stated that he started the takeoff roll by 'power[ing] up' to 36 inches manifold pressure and 2,250 rpm. After liftoff from the runway, during a turn, at about 150 feet agl, the engine lost power. The pilot dumped the load of chemical and initiated a forced landing to a 'fresh rowed cotton field.' The airplane touched down perpendicular to the rows, and during the landing roll, the main landing gear 'sunk' into the soft ground, and the aircraft nosed over coming to rest inverted. An examination of the aircraft's engine by an FAA inspector revealed that 'the #6 cylinder had a preexisting crack.'
Probable cause
The loss of engine power due to a crack in the #6 cylinder. A factor was the lack of suitable terrain for the forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW00LA074
- Event ID
- 20001212X20369
- Case number
- FTW00LA074
- 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: 19a258001ecd345b8d410b932ee32dc34b2c0fde20b24a36eca5ba22b2e348b5; retrieved 2026-09-22T13:20:18.167Z.