DEN04LA086 · Eagle DW-1
Eagle DW-1 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather while maneuvering
From Junction Airport (U13) to U13
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN04LA086
- 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
Eagle DW-1
- Aircraft type
- Eagle DW-1
- 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
- N8805D
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Junction Airport (U13), Junction, UTTo U13
- 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 encounter with weather
- 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 control, not possible
- Weather condition › Turbulence, terrain induced
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was applying pesticide to a 100-acre alfalfa field. He said the winds were from the southwest at approximately 7 knots. He had completed the north end of the field while flying in a "racetrack" pattern from west to east. Because of the rising terrain to the east of the field, he decided to complete the pesticide application while flying in both directions. During a "right standard reversal turn," the airplane encountered "extreme turbulence" which caused the airplane to roll to the right. The pilot stated that he added full power and pointed the nose down to regain control. Although the pilot was able to get the wings level, the buffeting and turbulence was so "severe" that the airplane did not respond and continued to "sink rapidly." As the pilot attempted to release the remaining pesticide, the airplane's lower left wing struck the rough and uneven terrain and the airplane cartwheeled. The airplane was destroyed by a postimpact fire.
Probable cause
the encounter with severe turbulence during aerial application and the pilot's inability to maintain aircraft control resulting in the in-flight collision with terrain. A contributing factor was the low altitude.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN04LA086
- Event ID
- 20040817X01237
- Case number
- DEN04LA086
- 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. 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: 754af29e78150639b2f926aaf8a1b4ea4461aec426518edf76b2138741987f03; retrieved 2026-09-21T19:13:33.537Z.