LAX02LA034 · Air Tractor AT-401B
Air Tractor AT-401B and Air Tractor AT-402A · Accident: collision between aircraft (not in flight) during landing
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX02LA034
- 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
- Unknown
- 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
Aircraft 1 · Air Tractor AT-401B
- 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
- N9186J
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Olney Municipal Airport (ONY), Olney, TXTo Harry Reid International Airport (LAS), Las Vegas, NV
- 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
- Landing · flare/touchdown
- 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
- Collision between aircraft (not in flight)
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- None
Aircraft 2 · Air Tractor AT-402A
- Aircraft type
- Air Tractor AT-402
- 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
- N139LA
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Olney Municipal Airport (ONY), Olney, TXTo Harry Reid International Airport (LAS), Las Vegas, NV
- 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
- Landing · landing roll
- 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
- Collision between aircraft (not in flight)
- 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
- Pilot in command › Clearance, not maintained
- Pilot of other aircraft › Clearance, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Three airplanes, an AT-401, an AT-402 and an AT-502 were making a cross-country formation flight. Originally, the AT-401 was the lead airplane, the AT-402 was in the number 2 position, and the AT-502 was the trailing airplane. The AT-401 experienced radio communication problems during the flight. When the AT-401 pilot was unable to establish radio communications with air traffic control at the destination airport, he turned the lead over to the AT-502. The AT-401 pilot thought he was to transition to the number 2 position with the AT-402 taking the trail position. The pilot of the AT-402 thought the AT-401 was to take the trail position after the AT-502 assumed the lead, and he was to remain the number 2 airplane in the formation/landing sequence. According to the AT-401 pilot, the transition from base leg to final approach brought his airplane through the glare of the setting sun, and he concentrated on maintaining his relative position to the lead airplane. He landed behind the AT-502 and taxied off the runway. The AT-402 pilot indicated he landed behind the AT-502, and during the roll out, felt his airplane shudder as the AT-401 impacted his vertical stabilizer/rudder, passed over his airplane and landed on the runway ahead of him.
Probable cause
the failure of the AT-401 pilot to maintain clearance with the AT-402 airplane during landing. Contributing factors were the unreliable communication radio in the AT-401, the AT-401 pilot's continued flight with known communication radio problems, and the glare of the sun.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX02LA034
- Event ID
- 20011226X02441
- Case number
- LAX02LA034
- 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, coordinates, damage. 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: bd03cf67ec45afe2cc465d98d5f5eea55e689b2dafc91d73e56c044755d3abb8; retrieved 2026-09-22T11:18:45.868Z.