CHI07LA207 · Weatherly 620B
Frank's Flying Service Weatherly 620B · Accident: in flight collision with object while maneuvering
From Kewanee Municipal Airport (EZI) to Morris Municipal Airport James R. Washburn field (C09)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI07LA207
- 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
Weatherly 620B
- Aircraft type
- Weatherly 620
- 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
- N9026E
- Operator
- Frank's Flying Service
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Kewanee Municipal Airport (EZI), Kewanee, ILTo Morris Municipal Airport James R. Washburn field (C09), Morris, IL
- 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 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
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 had completed spraying most of the field during the aerial application flight and was making clean-up passes when the left wing contacted four wires of high-tension power lines. Data retrieved from a global positioning system receiver on board the airplane indicated the pilot sprayed the field by flying an east-west pattern crossing the power lines. He then began making the clean-up passes in a southeast to northwest direction. The accident occurred the second time he crossed the power lines during the clean-up passes. Inspection of the airplane and engine did not reveal any pre-existing mechanical failure/malfunction, which would have resulted in the accident.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain clearance with the power lines during the aerial application flight. Contributing to the accident were the power lines and the low altitude.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI07LA207
- Event ID
- 20070720X00963
- Case number
- CHI07LA207
- 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 2007-07-13.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 2453559e1598fc4cbfc85450aeb3bb0a8d0ede517d9a06b595181b2ee5553d08; retrieved 2026-09-20T16:29:34.184Z.