CEN12CA568 · Air Tractor Inc AT-502B
Dan Aero Air Tractor Inc AT-502B · Accident: collision during takeoff/landing
From Bogata, TX to Bogata, TX
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN12CA568
- 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
- N6047G
- Operator
- Dan Aero
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Bogata, TXTo Bogata, TX
- 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
- Takeoff
- 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
- Collision during takeoff/landing
- 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 as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that he completed two successful aerial application flights from the same 2,000-foot turf runway before the accident flight. For the next chemical application, the airplane was loaded on downsloping terrain, in a tail-high attitude, just before the accident flight. This position may have affected the accuracy of the sight gauge. The pilot was distracted during the chemical loading and refueling and did not recheck the level of the chemical in the hopper. In a postaccident interview, the pilot stated that after loading, the airplane exceeded its maximum gross weight by about 500 pounds. The temperature was about 95 degrees Fahrenheit and the wind was from 270 degrees at 5 knots. The pilot departed with 10 degrees of flaps. The airplane became airborne but did not get out of ground effect. According to the pilot, the airplane “sagged” and the left main landing gear hit an embankment. The airplane landed in the adjacent cornfield and sustained substantial damage to the wings and fuselage. The pilot reported no preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation. He stated that a dust devil may have affected the airplane’s performance.
Probable cause
The pilot’s inadequate preflight planning, which resulted in the airplane’s loading beyond its maximum gross weight.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN12CA568
- Event ID
- 20120823X55748
- Case number
- CEN12CA568
- 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: ff23a7e54d5f48321a460c2714577fc89030e00470aae20eb2367612e1b971b9; retrieved 2026-09-15T19:29:22.179Z.