WPR11CA252 · Air Tractor Inc AT-502B
Wilbur-Ellis Air Air Tractor Inc AT-502B and Wilbur-Ellis Air Aero Commander S2R · Accident: ground collision while taxiing
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR11CA252
- 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
Aircraft 1 · 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
- N6072X
- Operator
- Wilbur-Ellis Air
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Odessa Municipal Airport (43D), Odessa, WATo Odessa Municipal Airport (43D), Odessa, WA
- 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
- Taxi · to runway
- 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
- Ground collision
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Minor
Aircraft 2 · 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
- N3662X
- Operator
- Wilbur-Ellis Air
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Odessa Municipal Airport (43D), Odessa, WATo Odessa Municipal Airport (43D), Odessa, WA
- 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
- Standing · engine(s) operating
- 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
- Ground collision
- 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
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
- Personnel issues › Psychological
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot of the Air Tractor airplane reported that after loading the airplane's chemical tanks he began taxiing for departure. The pilot said he was watching his left wing to clear obstacles, but sun glare made looking to the right difficult. The pilot said he did not see an Aero Commander airplane that was stopped on the taxiway, waiting to enter the loading area. The propeller of the Air Tractor struck the right wing of the Aero Commander, substantially damaging its right wing. The pilots of each airplane reported that there were no pre-impact mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airframes and engines of their respective aircraft that would have precluded normal flight.
Probable cause
The pilot of the Air Tractor's failure to maintain clearance from the Aero Commander.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR11CA252
- Event ID
- 20110607X72049
- Case number
- WPR11CA252
- 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: d15ea89e352815264605e66b45d2419683a09bfa9c9cdbd953ada2f1ec479e92; retrieved 2026-09-13T18:19:09.345Z.