LAX08CA034 · Air Tractor AT-401
Soilserv Air Tractor AT-401 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water while maneuvering
From Mesa Del Rey Airport (KIC) to Mesa Del Rey Airport (KIC)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX08CA034
- 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-401
- Aircraft type
- Air Tractor AT-401
- 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
- N6024M
- Operator
- Soilserv
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Mesa Del Rey Airport (KIC), King City, CATo Mesa Del Rey Airport (KIC)
- 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 terrain/water
- 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 › Clearance, not maintained
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, inadequate
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 seeding an area located adjacent to mountainous terrain. Prior to making the first pass, he had flown a reconnaissance flight to inspect the area. After completion of the first pass as he was maneuvering in a turn back towards the field, he was checking the seeding pattern and making adjustments to the GPS system inside the cockpit. When he checked the gauges again, he realized that the airplane had lost airspeed and rolled out to a wings level configuration to regain the lost airspeed. The airplane was headed towards rising terrain. He jettisoned the remaining seed and made a controlled collision with terrain in a ravine. The airplane was destroyed in a post impact fire. He reported that he had preoccupied himself with less important flight duties at a critical time during the flight. The pilot reported no mechanical problems that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain an adequate clearance from mountainous terrain while maneuvering during an aerial application mission. Contributing to the accident was the pilot's diverted attention inside the cockpit.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX08CA034
- Event ID
- 20080116X00055
- Case number
- LAX08CA034
- 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: a6e71c41291bce32214b5eb5b1ac8f088a275cd17d9c6d296333be80f468fb83; retrieved 2026-09-21T08:41:15.023Z.