LAX03LA180 · Air Tractor AT-502A
Air Tractor AT-502A · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From Tri-County Air Service Airport (XS58) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX03LA180
- 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-502A
- 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
- N948BB
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Tri-County Air Service Airport (XS58), Raywood, TXTo 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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
- Stall/mush; Tree(s)
- 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 › Aircraft preflight, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, not obtained/maintained
- Pilot in command › Lowering of flaps, not performed
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane collided with trees while departing from a private grass airstrip. The departure surface was a grass strip that stretched about 2,000 feet long, with trees located at the end. The Airplane Flight Manual for the AT-502A states that 10 degrees of flaps should be set for takeoff. The pilot reported that his takeoff procedure consisted of starting the takeoff roll with the wing flaps in the retracted position until rotation, where he would he would start the initial climb by pulling back on the control stick while simultaneously lowering the flaps to the 10-degree extended position. The pilot stated that he used this procedure in an effort to decrease the ground roll. Following his procedure, the pilot applied full engine power and the airplane started the takeoff roll down the grass strip. As the airplane's groundspeed increased, he moved the flap control to extend the wing flaps and rotated the airplane to a nose high attitude. The airplane lifted off the grass surface, but the wing flaps failed to extend. The airplane climbed to about 15 feet, flew down the runway in ground effect, and collided with tree branches, then descended into the terrain. During an examination of the cockpit, a Federal Aviation Administration inspector observed the flap circuit breaker to be in the "out" position. The airplane's manufacturer stated that applying the wing flaps after starting the departure roll is an improper takeoff procedure. The manufacturer further stated that the drag created by the wing flaps at 10 degrees is negligible during takeoff roll phase of operation, and keeping them retracted will not decrease the takeoff distance by a measurable amount. An examination of the flap system failed to find a problem with the system operation or determine why the circuit breaker was in the open position.
Probable cause
the pilot's encounter with a stall/mush condition in the takeoff initial climb due to his inadequate preflight/pretakeoff procedures and failure to set the wing flaps to the proper takeoff configuration before beginning the takeoff ground roll.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX03LA180
- Event ID
- 20030605X00805
- Case number
- LAX03LA180
- 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: 62c6a581bec06c799578357415248d638cd36b00c8023f37a160eb4f399a98d2; retrieved 2026-09-21T19:28:12.500Z.