CEN14LA284 · Air Tractor AT-301
Semper Fi Aviation Air Tractor AT-301 · Accident: aerodynamic stall/spin during takeoff
From Winner Regional Airport (ICR) to Winner Regional Airport (ICR)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN14LA284
- 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 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
- N8564S
- Operator
- Semper Fi Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Winner Regional Airport (ICR), Winner, SDTo Winner Regional Airport (ICR), Winner, SD
- Aircraft age
- About 36 years (built 1978)
- 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
- Aerodynamic stall/spin
- 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
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The commercial pilot was conducting a local agricultural application flight. The pilot reported that shortly after liftoff from runway 31, at an altitude of 3-5 ft above the runway, he heard a loud bang and the airplane began to yaw left. The airplane descended and bounced off the left side of the runway. The pilot stated that he increased the airplane's pitch to gain altitude, but the airplane encountered an aerodynamic stall and the left wing dropped. As he attempted to dump the load of insecticide, the airplane nosed over into the ground and came to rest inverted. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the fuselage, both wings, and the empennage. A postaccident examination revealed no evidence of a mechanical malfunction or failure that would have precluded normal operation during the flight. The engine, which separated from the airframe during impact, exhibited impact-related damage and no mechanical malfunctions.
The surface wind at the time of the accident would have resulted in an 8-knot tailwind during the takeoff. The effect of the tailwind would have resulted in a greater groundspeed and additional runway length needed to attain the proper liftoff airspeed. The pilot likely conducted a premature liftoff at an inadequate airspeed, which resulted in the airplane exceeding its critical angle of attack and entering an aerodynamic stall.
Probable cause
The pilot's improper decision to attempt a takeoff with a tailwind and his failure to achieve the proper airspeed for liftoff, which resulted in the airplane exceeding its critical angle of attack and entering an aerodynamic stall shortly after liftoff.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN14LA284
- Event ID
- 20140611X81726
- Case number
- CEN14LA284
- 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. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2014-06-11.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 1960a1ab5ab82396f82c46b77d7ffbc0b79c82c6f1a4cfdd3f6adb1850284485; retrieved 2026-09-16T00:04:28.307Z.