FTW04CA112 · Air Tractor AT-502B
Summers Spraying Service Air Tractor AT-502B · Accident: in flight collision with object during initial climb
From San Angelo, TX to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW04CA112
- 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-502B
- 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
- N5196J
- Operator
- Summers Spraying Service
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From San Angelo, 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
- In flight collision with object
- 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
- 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 › Climb, not attained
- Pilot in command › Preflight planning/preparation, improper
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the pilot, he stated that he "didn't plan well" for the flight. He attempted to takeoff on about a 180-degree heading from a 3,000-foot-long dirt strip on a hot day with 500 gallons of chemicals on board, full fuel tanks, and a crosswind. He applied full power, started the take-off roll, and the airplane became airborne. But, when the airplane got to the end of the runway, it "wouldn't fly." The pilot tried to dump the chemical load, but was unsuccessful. Subsequently, the landing gear contacted tree tops, and the airplane rolled and collided with the ground. Once the airplane came to a stop, it caught on fire. Weather conditions at an airport located 20 nautical miles northwest of the accident were wind from 250 degrees at 12 knots gusting to 16 knots, clear skies, temperature 84 degrees Fahrenheit, and dew point 37 degrees Fahrenheit. The density altitude was 4,179 feet.
Probable cause
The pilot's improper preflight performance planning, and his failure to establish a climb. Factors were the high density altitude and crosswind.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW04CA112
- Event ID
- 20040603X00723
- Case number
- FTW04CA112
- 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: 602a6c5d33700d401ce5e31cd92f34583e4cae19ddead5c03e87ad8f21148d25; retrieved 2026-09-22T07:41:59.416Z.