ERA09LA128 · Air Tractor Inc AT-602
Quinn Aviation Air Tractor Inc AT-602 · Accident: VFR encounter with IMC en route
From Mac Crenshaw Memorial Airport (PRN) to Cleveland Municipal Airport (RNV)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA09LA128
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Air Tractor Inc AT-602
- Aircraft type
- Air Tractor AT-602
- 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
- N5013C
- Operator
- Quinn Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Mac Crenshaw Memorial Airport (PRN), Greenville, ALTo Cleveland Municipal Airport (RNV), Cleveland, MS
- 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 91: General Aviation
- 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
- Defining eventThe 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
- VFR encounter with IMC
- 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
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The non-instrument rated pilot departed an estimated 20 minutes in trail behind another pilot flying to the same destination airport, for an intended fuel stop, located approximately 239 nautical miles away. The two pilots exchanged two-way communications using text messaging and the first pilot performed a precautionary landing in a field due to adverse weather. At approximately 1155, the pilot sent a text message to his brother advising him he was on the way home and dodging weather. At approximately 1156, the accident pilot was sent a text message asking about the weather to which he replied he could not see. Witnesses near the area reported hearing a sound and the airplane impacted trees. The airplane impacted trees ,then the ground, and was destroyed by impact and the postcrash fire. Inspection of the engine, airframe, and flight controls revealed no evidence of preimpact failure or malfunction.
Probable cause
The pilot's improper preflight weather planning and his continued VFR flight into IMC conditions resulting in an in-flight collision with trees.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA09LA128
- Event ID
- 20090105X22709
- Case number
- ERA09LA128
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
Source notes (5)
- 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: 7bb975bddeabf7c7e0a3553583846bd310e10640e44fdb3d7d77ebc30e8019ce; retrieved 2026-09-13T19:54:23.550Z.
- Corrected after a review of the NTSB narrative, which states these values explicitly: damage. Narrative: the airplane impacted trees, then the ground, and was destroyed by impact and the postcrash fire.