WPR11CA286 · Air Tractor AT301
Harris Spraying Air Tractor AT301 · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From Circle Town County Airport (4U6) to Circle Town County Airport (4U6)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's departure or destination. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR11CA286
- 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 AT301
- Aircraft type
- Air Tractor AT301
- 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
- N2362D
- Operator
- Harris Spraying
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route Narrative disagrees
- From Circle Town County Airport (4U6), Circle Airport, MTTo Circle Town County Airport (4U6), Circle Airport, MT
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated that he loaded the hopper of the airplane with chemicals for an agricultural flight and proceeded to take off. During the initial climb, at approximately 50 feet above ground level (agl), the pilot noticed a tailwind from the southwest and at 60 feet agl noticed that his climb rate had diminished. He performed a forced landing in the wash across a main road, and on touchdown the main landing gear separated and the airplane proceeded inside a gully where the wings sustained substantial damage. At the time of the accident, the density altitude was approximately 3,600 feet. The pilot reported no mechanical issues or malfunctions that would have precluded normal operation and he felt that he was unable to attain an adequate flying speed due to the high humidity.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to attain and maintain an adequate airspeed during initial climb.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR11CA286
- Event ID
- 20110624X75815
- Case number
- WPR11CA286
- 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, coordinates. 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: e296912133f5c5e125555bf5c28cd913631621137a9cb5da9ac0feb788ffdc85; retrieved 2026-09-15T16:21:03.783Z.