CEN13LA375 · Air Tractor Inc AT-301
Semper Fi Aviation Air Tractor Inc AT-301 · Accident: low altitude operation/event while maneuvering
From Winner Regional Airport (ICR) to Colome, SD
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN13LA375
- 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-301
- Aircraft type
- Air Tractor AT-301
- 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
- N3168X
- Operator
- Semper Fi Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Winner Regional Airport (ICR), Winner, SDTo Colome, SD
- Aircraft age
- About 29 years (built 1984)
- 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
- Not determined › Not determined
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 reported that, during the start of his third spray pass, he cleared the telephone wires located at the edge of the field. Once over the field, he immediately noticed the engine power reduce. He attempted to pull back on the control stick to gain altitude, but the airplane's tail and right wing struck the field. During the forced landing roll, the right landing gear collapsed, and the airplane nosed over. No water was found in the fuel system, and the weather conditions were not conducive for carburetor icing. A postaccident engine run was conducted, and no anomalies were observed that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The loss of engine power for reasons that could not be determined because a postaccident engine run revealed no anomalies that would have precluded normal operation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN13LA375
- Event ID
- 20130627X42109
- Case number
- CEN13LA375
- 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: d27668c2a46b4b1d7bf32d375f2478caa01560f09c40d99aca69dff26eedb41b; retrieved 2026-09-15T22:01:04.080Z.