WPR10CA439 · Ayres S2R-G10
Ayres S2R-G10 · Accident: low altitude operation/event while maneuvering
From Yuma, AZ to Yuma, AZ
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR10CA439
- 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
Ayres S2R-G10
- Aircraft type
- Ayres 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
- N6125X
- Operator
- Morris Equipment
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Yuma, AZTo Yuma, AZ
- 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
- Low altitude operation/event
- 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
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the owner of the aerial application company, the single engine airplane was loaded with 430 gallons (approx 3440 lbs) of liquid insecticide for its mission. The airplane departed from a satellite airstrip about 0400 mountain standard time (MST), in order to spray an agricultural field located approximately 5 miles east of the airstrip. When the airplane failed to return to the airstrip at the expected time, the loader became concerned. He telephoned the owner, and the owner initiated a search for the airplane. About 0545, the wreckage was located, approximately 125 feet above, and 1/2 mile to the west of, the field being sprayed, on rocky, rising terrain. Examination by a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) inspector revealed that airplane struck the terrain in a relatively level attitude, while on an approximate track of northwest, and came to rest facing southwest. The commercial pilot stated that he completed several passes on the field, and was maneuvering the airplane for another pass, when the wind shifted. The airplane was unable to out climb, and subsequently impacted, the terrain. The pilot sustained serious injuries. The pilot reported that he had about 28,500 total hours of flight experience, including 1,388 hours in the accident airplane make and model, and he had been conducting agricultural spraying in the area for the previous 4 months. When asked by the FAA inspector, the pilot stated that if he could change anything about the flight, he would have applied the agent on north-south tracks instead of east-west tracks, in order to provide more clearance from the rising terrain to the west. US Naval Observatory data indicated that local sunrise was about 0612 MST. The automated weather observation at an airport located approximately 20 miles west of the accident site included winds from 020 degrees at 3 knots; visibility 10 miles; clear skies; temperature 24 degrees C; and a dew point of 12 degrees C.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain clearance from rising terrain. Contributing to the accident was the pilot's decision to orient the application tracks so that they did not provide the maximum possible clearance from the rising terrain, and, the predawn lighting conditions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR10CA439
- Event ID
- 20100831X32952
- Case number
- WPR10CA439
- 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: 9aa3be97a23d79d84a4aeec3caddf2d1327248f1f08e0ac08a1cd1facc3eea30; retrieved 2026-09-15T15:02:02.418Z.