NYC03TA138 · Air Tractor 402A
USDA Forest Service Air Tractor 402A · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) while maneuvering
From New River Valley Airport (PSK) to New River Valley Airport (PSK)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's operator. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC03TA138
- 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
- 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
Air Tractor 402A
- Aircraft type
- Air Tractor 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
- N4506L
- Operator
- USDA/Forest Service Possible conflict
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From New River Valley Airport (PSK), Dublin, VATo New River Valley Airport (PSK), Dublin, VA
- 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 · turn to reverse direction
- 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
- Total loss of engine power (mechanical failure)
- 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
- Turbine assembly, turbine blade › Fractured
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The Air Tractor was spreading chemical when the pilot observed orange flames and black smoke emitting from the engine exhausts. The engine lost power, he feathered the propeller, and set up for a forced landing in a nearby open field. The airplane touched down, rolled a short distance, and struck embedded rock. The landing gear collapsed, the fuselage was wrinkled, and the propeller separated from the engine. Examination of the PWC PT6A-20 engine revealed several compressor turbine blades had fractured and been released into the engine gas path. The blades also impacted adjacent and downstream components. The compressor turbine blades used in the engine were not approved by PWC; however, they were PMA manufactured with FAA approval. Since engine overhaul, the engine had accumulated 10,978.8 hours and 15,059 cycles. According to the FAA, the PWC recommended overhaul time of 3,600 hours. The airplane was being operated on a USDA Forest Service contact that required the engine to have been overhauled within the manufacturer's specifications. The engine's time since overhaul was not discovered by the Forest Service when they accepted the airplane for use on their contract.
Probable cause
A compressor turbine blade fracture which resulted in a power loss, and forced landing. Factor were the rocks in the landing area, and the operator's decision to operate the engine beyond the engine manufacturer's recommendations for overhaul.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC03TA138
- Event ID
- 20030707X01025
- Case number
- NYC03TA138
- 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: d19fe9e3731494031c248e3bece121579ef83f8c066ceeda28fb28f75c97db99; retrieved 2026-09-18T21:17:36.857Z.