CEN13FA324 · Weatherly Aviation Co Inc 620B
Air Kraft Spraying Weatherly Aviation Co Inc 620B · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Ludlow, SD to Ludlow, SD
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN13FA324
- 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
Weatherly Aviation Co Inc 620B
- Aircraft type
- Weatherly 620
- 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
- N350WR
- Operator
- Air Kraft Spraying
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Ludlow, SDTo Ludlow, SD
- 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
- 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, not marked as estimated; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot had been performing aerial applications; the airplane was found crashed in a field adjacent to the area where he was applying applicant. A map of the 891.72-acre application area showed that it was asymmetrical and that it included a series of diagonally adjoining rectangular fields bounded by fences and property and an irregularly shaped field bounded by a curved highway. The fields to be treated were located north, south, and east of the accident site. According to an aerial application pilot familiar with the work site, if the accident pilot were following a north-south application path, it would have been appropriate for the airplane to fly over the accident area in straight-and-level flight without spraying any materials in that area. However, given the irregular shape of the application area, it is possible that the pilot may have been maneuvering the airplane for a different application path to another part of the field.
An examination of the airplane, the engine, and related systems revealed no anomalies that would have precluded normal operation. The damage to the airplane and ground scars were consistent with the airplane being at a high angle-of-attack, consistent with a stalled condition, at the time of impact.
According to the pilot's colleagues, he got up at 0700 the morning of the accident after sleeping about 7 to 8 hours and started flying at 0930. He flew all morning and took a 10- to 15-minute break for lunch about 1300. The pilot then continued to fly until the time of the accident. He had flown at least 9 hours when the accident occurred. The low-level aerial application flight operations would have required considerable concentration to ensure proper application to the target crop, obstacle avoidance, and precise control of the airplane while dispensing multiple loads of chemical throughout the day. Such operations can induce fatigue, particularly when they are conducted during the course of a long work day like the pilot had. Therefore, it is likely that the pilot would have been affected by task- and/or work-related fatigue when the accident took place.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain control of the airplane while maneuvering, which resulted in an inadvertent stall. Contributing to the accident was task- and/or work-related fatigue.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN13FA324
- Event ID
- 20130607X03043
- Case number
- CEN13FA324
- 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: local date, investigation status, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2013-06-07.
- API snapshot SHA-256: e9cc145c4fe29be4e06a0f4308e0b13fb0eac5d40e1313869ad4fca3e1bfbc3c; retrieved 2026-09-14T15:58:03.964Z.