SEA00LA131 · Wsk Pzl Mielec M-18 DROMADER M-18 DROMA
A-1 Aviation Wsk Pzl Mielec M-18 DROMADER M-18 DROMA · Accident: in flight collision with object on approach
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA00LA131
- 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
Wsk Pzl Mielec M-18 DROMADER M-18 DROMA
- Aircraft type
- WSK PZL Mielec M-18
- 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
- N2054S
- Operator
- A-1 Aviation
- 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
- Approach · VFR go-around
- 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
- 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
- Ground personnel › Airport operations, improper
- Pilot in command › Visual lookout, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
After the pilot took off on the accident flight, and unknown to the pilot, the ground crew moved a fertilizer loading truck onto the end of the airstrip. Ground crew witnesses reported that this was not the fertilizer truck's usual or desired parking location. The pilot reported that he did not notice the truck being moved there when he was returning to land, stating that the area is a busy area for agricultural aircraft operations. The pilot stated that he attempted a go-around when he spotted the truck on landing, but that the landing was made with a 10- to 15-knot quartering tailwind, and that the temperature at the airstrip (elevation approximately 4,300 feet) was approximately 98 to 99 degrees F. The pilot stated that he was not able to clear the truck on the go-around, and that the fertilizer spreader on the aircraft caught the truck auger (which was located about 5 to 6 feet above the bin.) The aircraft nosed into a wheat field off the end of the runway, collided with the ground, slid and burned. The pilot escaped the aircraft with minor injuries. Density altitude at the time was approximately 7,800 feet.
Probable cause
Improper airstrip operations by ground personnel, and the pilot's failure to visually detect a vehicle on the airstrip in time to avoid a collision. Factors included a vehicle on the airstrip, tailwind conditions, and high density altitude conditions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA00LA131
- Event ID
- 20001212X21609
- Case number
- SEA00LA131
- 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: 2cda2b5aa2997474b529ddbc8bbe3e08dd10a0c82db6b72636045d6df9f1c43d; retrieved 2026-09-21T20:09:55.290Z.