DEN07LA020 · Air Tractor AT-502A
M and M Air Service Air Tractor AT-502A · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Deming, NM to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN07LA020
- 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
Air Tractor AT-502A
- 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
- N1541T
- Operator
- M and M Air Service
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Deming, NMTo 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
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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
- Stall/spin
- 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 maintained
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was applying dry chemical to a field. After refueling and reloading dry chemical, the pilot departed for the second flight of the day. A rancher, who owned the field the pilot was spraying, was in contact with the pilot via hand-held radio. The pilot and rancher discussed the terrain and application flight paths. The pilot elected to start the application at the top of a ridge and fly downhill. The pilot reported that the downhill pass felt okay, and he was going to make the second pass up slope. The up slope application pass was successful. The rancher then observed the airplane climb to about 500 feet above ground level over a saddle gap between two 6,300 foot ridges, and the airplane began a turn back to the field. Subsequently, the pilot reported over the radio that he was " in a bind and was going to crash." The rancher then observed the airplane "pitch over abruptly and enter a tight spin." The airplane made three turns prior to impact with terrain. The airplane was destroyed by post-impact fire. Examination of the airplane and engine revealed no anomalies.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain aircraft control while maneuvering resulting in an inadvertent stall and impact with terrain. A contributing factor was the low airspeed.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN07LA020
- Event ID
- 20061107X01621
- Case number
- DEN07LA020
- 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: 300ee3b2a230b71427803878d546e9d14734d3046f97c8ec108b549340137040; retrieved 2026-09-20T16:59:59.156Z.