LAX03LA188 · Ayres S2R-G10
Ayres S2R-G10 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water while maneuvering
From Stanfield, AZ (private airstrip) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX03LA188
- 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
Ayres S2R-G10
- Aircraft type
- Ayres S2
- 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
- N6117X
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Stanfield, AZ (private airstrip)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
- Maneuvering · aerial application
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Altitude/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
The airplane collided with the ground during aerial applications. En route to a field, the pilot related that the circuit breaker for the torque indicator popped. After it was reset, the pilot began his descent to the field and the torque indicator popped the circuit breaker for a second time. The pilot reset the breaker, and then the airplane impacted the ground. Post accident examination revealed that the insulation on the wiring to the torque meter had worn off, resulting in the circuit breaker tripping off line. The lower cowling contained pieces of the combustion liner, and a 1½-inch hole was located in the bottom of the combustion liner. The torque meter area displayed signatures consistent with extensive heat. An internal examination revealed aluminum and titanium deposits on the turbine blades, indicative of a running engine at the time of impact. No pre-existing condition was found on the engine that would have interfered with its normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain clearance/altitude from terrain during an aerial application, which resulted in an in-flight collision with terrain. A factor associated with the accident is the pilot's diverted attention while resetting a circuit breaker.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX03LA188
- Event ID
- 20030617X00888
- Case number
- LAX03LA188
- 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: 2d5b28ea1c13c5152cbdbb862132638bdab1ef5e216109796ceeef4133338085; retrieved 2026-09-21T19:27:46.478Z.