FTW00TA142 · Air Tractor AT-802A
Air Tractor AT-802A · Accident: in flight collision with object while maneuvering
From Fort Stockton Pecos County Airport (FST) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW00TA142
- 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
Air Tractor AT-802A
- Aircraft type
- Air Tractor AT-802
- 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
- N60471
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Fort Stockton Pecos County Airport (FST)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 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
- Maneuvering
- 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
- Antenna
- 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
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
A witness, located approximately 1/4-mile from the accident site, stated that the agricultural airplane was spraying fire retardant on an 8,000-acre fire. The witness observed the airplane bank 'hard to his right' after dropping the fire retardant. The witness reported that 'he [the airplane] was still in his turn or bank when he hit the guy wires of the radio tower.' The witness heard two loud bangs and observed the airplane impact the ground. Multiple strands of cable were found among the aircraft wreckage. The top 80 feet of the 300-foot antenna tower and the associated guide cables were destroyed. There were no mechanical discrepancies found with the airframe or the engine that would have prevented operation of the airplane prior to the accident. The FAA inspector stated that visual meteorological conditions prevailed at the time of the accident; however, there was 'blowing smoke in the air that may have been a contributing factor.'
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain clearance with the antenna tower. A factor was the smoke weather condition.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW00TA142
- Event ID
- 20001212X21012
- Case number
- FTW00TA142
- 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: eb0090c653db4ba7123ec04913cd967a703b051a32061f487b79e9231599cad7; retrieved 2026-09-20T21:14:57.793Z.