CEN13LA425 · Air Tractor Inc AT-400
Air Tractor Inc AT-400 · Accident: low altitude operation/event while maneuvering
From Dixon Municipal Charles R. Walgreen Field (C73) to Dixon Municipal Charles R. Walgreen Field (C73)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN13LA425
- 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-400
- Aircraft type
- Air Tractor AT-400
- 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
- N155HF
- Operator
- Timothy Malsberg
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Dixon Municipal Charles R. Walgreen Field (C73), Dixon, ILTo Dixon Municipal Charles R. Walgreen Field (C73), Dixon, IL
- 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 · 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
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Tower/antenna (incl guy wires)
- 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
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
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 he circled the field to check for obstacles before beginning to apply the agricultural product, but did not see any obstructions. He made the first aerial application pass without incident; however, during the second pass, the airplane hit guy wires "head on." The guy wires extended farther into the field than the pilot was accustomed to and can be difficult to see. The airplane impacted the cornfield, and the two adjacent towers were toppled by the impact with the guy wires. The pilot reported that there was no preaccident malfunction or system failure of the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain clearance from the guy wires during an aerial application maneuver. Contributing to the accident was the pilot's failure to identify potential obstructions in the area before beginning low-altitude maneuvers.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN13LA425
- Event ID
- 20130722X03617
- Case number
- CEN13LA425
- 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: 0c81ac3ac108d5014a831bc2b2baddce29ed55f3ff5abe7a2275c374dd178f45; retrieved 2026-09-15T22:16:23.118Z.