ATL04CA146 · Air Tractor AT-402A
Air Tractor AT-402A · Accident: in flight collision with object while maneuvering
From Courtland Airport (9A4) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL04CA146
- 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-402A
- Aircraft type
- Air Tractor AT-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
- N9089L
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Courtland Airport (9A4), Courtland, ALTo 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 91: General Aviation
- 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
- 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
- Wire, transmission
- 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 › Clearance, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Visual lookout, inadequate
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, the airplane collided with the top wire of a transmission tower that "was not visible to [him]." He stated that the airplane spun around 180 degrees to the left, the airplane "was out of control," collided with the ground, and came to rest inverted in a nearby field. Examination of the wreckage site revealed the wreckage debris path extended across the field a distance of 75 feet leading up to the main wreckage site. The tower arm of the transmission tower, that was estimated to be 100 feet high, was bent, and the upper transmission wire was separated. Examination of the wreckage revealed that the engine assembly separated from the engine mounts. The propeller hub was separated from the crankshaft. The engine cowling and fuselage were crushed aft to the pilot compartment. The right wingtip was separated. The leading edge of the right wing was crushed beginning about midspan outboard to the end of the wing. The left wing was partially separated at the root and completely separated approximately midspan. The left horizontal stabilizer leading edge was crushed aft.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate visual lookout and failure to maintain adequate obstacle clearance, which resulted in collision with transmission wires.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL04CA146
- Event ID
- 20040802X01121
- Case number
- ATL04CA146
- 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: local date, investigation status, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2004-07-03.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 8af85d78bc3d4f488ed74822f4e68af3359f40b4560e5261bdf3493d4a57947a; retrieved 2026-09-21T19:12:30.375Z.