CEN10LA236 · Aero Commander S2R
Aufderheide Flying Service Aero Commander S2R · Accident while maneuvering
From De Witt Municipal Airport Whitcomb Field (5M1) to De Witt Municipal Airport Whitcomb Field (5M1)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN10LA236
- 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
Aero Commander S2R
- Aircraft type
- Aero Commander S2
- 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
- N5531X
- Operator
- Aufderheide Flying Service
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From De Witt Municipal Airport Whitcomb Field (5M1), De Witt Municip, ARTo De Witt Municipal Airport Whitcomb Field (5M1), De Witt Municip, AR
- 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 · 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
- Unknown or undetermined
- 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
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane was reported missing after failing to return from an aerial application flight. The airplane wreckage was located in a wooded area near the field being sprayed about 5 hours after the airplane's expected return time. Flight control continuity could not be verified due to damage to the airplane. Postaccident examination of the engine and propeller assemblies indicated that the engine was producing power and the propeller was rotating during the impact sequence. The reason for the airplane impacting the trees and terrain could not be determined.
Probable cause
The pilot did not maintain clearance from terrain for undetermined reasons.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN10LA236
- Event ID
- 20100504X23052
- Case number
- CEN10LA236
- 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: b9873d551fe6a0ef649b8e2be53acfc769ee3d8aa37a7500536ecb6a91e9e8ef; retrieved 2026-09-13T20:47:17.976Z.