DEN03LA077 · Air Tractor AT-502
Air Tractor AT-502 · Accident: partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Dalhart, TX (no airport) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN03LA077
- 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
Air Tractor AT-502
- Aircraft type
- Air Tractor AT-502
- 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
- N318BR
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Dalhart, TX (no airport)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 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
- En route · descent
- 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
- Partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical)
- 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
- Fuel contamination
- 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
- Fluid, fuel › Contamination, water
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot said the airplane refueling process took a very long time, due to the slow rate of fuel transfer. He drained 2 to 3 gallons of fuel from each tank to check for contamination. While descending from 1,200 feet to 150 feet agl, he looked down at a map on his lap to verify which field was to be sprayed. The pilot said the engine began losing power, dropping from 80 pounds of torque to 40 pounds of torque. He noticed the loss of power when he attempted to level off, and the airplane was near a stall. He dumped the chemical, and pushed the power lever full forward, with no increase in power noted. The pilot performed a forced landing straight ahead due to his low altitude, and impacted a rotating irrigation system in a wheat field. The airplane was substantially damaged. Postimpact examination revealed water in the fuel filters on the airplane's engine and on the refueling system. Water was also found in the airplane's right fuel tank and in the source fuel tank.
Probable cause
the nonmechanical partial loss of engine power due to water contamination of the fuel. Contributing factors include the lack of suitable terrain for a forced landing (due to his low altitude), and the irrigation system (object) that was impacted.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN03LA077
- Event ID
- 20030509X00636
- Case number
- DEN03LA077
- 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. 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: 7e86a65fa1b4d8f7aff65d335ff585ffdfaffa231bff772857dbe7f1a126b21a; retrieved 2026-09-21T19:30:17.323Z.