CEN09CA194 · Air Tractor Inc AT-502B
Air Tractor Inc AT-502B · Accident: low altitude operation/event while maneuvering
From Marv Skie / Lincoln County Airport (Y14) to East Dakota Flying Club Seaplane Base (5G3)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN09CA194
- 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 Inc AT-502B
- 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
- N648LA
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Marv Skie / Lincoln County Airport (Y14), Tea, SDTo East Dakota Flying Club Seaplane Base (5G3), Harrold, SD
- 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
- Maneuvering · low-altitude flying
- 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
- Low altitude operation/event
- 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
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
- Personnel issues › Psychological
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated that he had been established in cruise flight at 4,500 feet mean sea level for the approximately 45-minute cross-country flight. As he neared the destination airport, he descended to about 100 feet above ground level (agl) in order to view some winter wheat fields for the upcoming agricultural spraying season. As he leveled off, he observed increasing fog along his route of flight. He began a 180-degree turn to reverse course and intended to divert to an intermediate airport when the airplane impacted a high-tension power line. The airplane severed one of the lines and subsequently impacted an adjacent farm field. The pilot reported no failures or malfunctions associated with the airplane prior to the collision with the power line. The pilot report weather conditions at the time of the accident as an obscured ceiling about 800 feet agl, with 2 miles visibility in fog. Winds were light and variable, and there was no precipitation.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain clearance from the power lines during his turn to reverse course due to weather. Contributing to the accident was the reduced visibility at the time of the accident.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN09CA194
- Event ID
- 20090309X15351
- Case number
- CEN09CA194
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
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. 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: e120d213cd79e6a0a459465ca58f468e78df6103db407ec6c8076b47fe2c3171; retrieved 2026-09-15T10:48:56.105Z.