ATL83FA127 · Douglas B-26C
Douglas B-26C · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water while maneuvering
From ASHVILLE, NC to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL83FA127
- 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
- Government
- 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
Douglas B-26C
- Aircraft type
- Douglas B-26
- 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
- N4060A
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From ASHVILLE, NCTo 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
- Public Aircraft
- 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 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Overconfidence in personal ability
- Pilot in command › Proper altitude, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PLT & ACFT HAD BEEN FIGHTING FOREST FIRES EARLIER IN THE DAY. A LATE DEVELOPING FIRE NECESSITATED ANOTHER DISPATCH. THE ACFT ARRIVED ON SCENE & CHECKED IN WITH THE LEAD ACFT CIRCLING OVERHEAD COORDINATING THE FIRE FIGHTING EFFORTS. THE TANKER MADE 2 RUNS OVER THE FIRE AREA FOLLOWING THE LEAD ACFT. AFTER THE 2ND RUN, THE ACFT BANKED LEFT IN A LEVEL TURN TO MAKE ANOTHER RUN WITHOUT USING THE LEAD ACFT. DURING THE 3RD RUN THE TANKER STRUCK TREES NEAR THE TOP OF A 1800 FT RIDGELINE. WITNESSES ON THE GROUND REMARKED HOW LOW THE ACFT WAS. ACCORDING TO THE PLT'S PEERS, HE TOOK PRIDE IN DOING HIS JOB WELL & ALWAYS STROVE TO PUT THE CHEMICAL RIGHT ON TARGET. THERE HAD BEEN OCCASIONS IN THE PAST WHERE THIS ZEAL TO SUCCEED HAD RESULTED IN HIS GOING LOWER THAN THE 150 FT AGL MINIMUM ALTITUDE MANDATED BY FORESTRY SERVICE REGS. HE HAD, ON OCCASIONS, RETURNED TO BASE WITH TREE FOLIAGE STUCK IN HIS AIRCRAFT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL83FA127
- Event ID
- 20001214X42326
- Case number
- ATL83FA127
- 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: d975d80c0d51f65f368cda58e40419d96801caf51148ac86b1b9d64319b8c22d; retrieved 2026-09-18T14:39:02.097Z.