DFW06LA130 · Grumman G-164A
Grumman G-164A and Ayres S2R · Accident: midair collision en route
Event
- NTSB case
- DFW06LA130
- 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
- 1 · 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
Aircraft 1 · Grumman G-164A
- Aircraft type
- Grumman G-164
- 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
- N6629
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From De Witt Municipal Airport Whitcomb Field (5M1), De Witt, ARTo De Witt, AR
- 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
- En route · cruise
- 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
- Midair collision
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Aircraft 2 · Ayres S2R
- 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
- N4121G
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From DeWitt, ARTo DeWitt, AR
- 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
- Midair collision
- 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 › Impairment(drugs)
- Pilot in command › Visual lookout, inadequate
- Pilot of other aircraft › Impairment(drugs)
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The 5,700-hour commercial pilot of a turbine powered agricultural bi-plane had completed an aerial application run, and was returning on a northerly heading to the municipal airport in order to pickup another load of fertilizer. The owner of the bi-plane stated that it's typical for the pilot to fly between 200 and 300 feet above the ground en route to, or from the airport. A 12,300-hour commercial pilot of an agricultural, turbine powered low-wing airplane departed a private airstrip, located west of the municipal airport, and was heading in a southeasterly direction en route to deliver his aerial application load. The airplanes collided in-flight while en route to their destinations and there was no reported witnesses to the event. The weather in the area was reported as VFR (Visual Flight Rules). The GPS logging unit was not installed in bi-plane at the time of the accident. The GPS memory card from the low-wing airplane was removed and sent to the manufacturer for download. However, the GPS manufacturer reported that the unit was not recording information at the time, and no data was available with regards to the accident. The Federal Aviation Administration's Civil Aerospace Medical Institute conducted toxicology tests on the remains of the Grumman G-164A pilot. Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC/marijuana) was detected in the pilot's heart and lung tissue. Tetrahydrocannabinol carboxylic acid (THC-COOH, a marijuana metabolite) was detected in lung, heart and urine samples. The testing indicated that the pilot had recently used marijuana, which resulted in his impairment.
Probable cause
The failure by both pilots to maintain adequate visual lookout and the Grumman G-164A pilot's impairment caused by the recent use of marijuana.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DFW06LA130
- Event ID
- 20060601X00665
- Case number
- DFW06LA130
- 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: c76761f5b4c7cbafad67700a74d7046b80ca1e7fea8838b34e0efb8078fc616d; retrieved 2026-09-20T17:20:35.344Z.