ERA14FA322 · Air Tractor Inc AT-602
Shannon Agricultural Flying Air Tractor Inc AT-602 · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Shannon Field (02CD) to Shannon Field (02CD)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA14FA322
- 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
Air Tractor Inc AT-602
- Aircraft type
- Air Tractor AT-602
- 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
- N91331
- Operator
- Shannon Agricultural Flying
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Shannon Field (02CD), Clarksdale, MSTo Shannon Field (02CD), Clarksdale, MS
- Aircraft age
- About 13 years (built 2001)
- 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
- 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
- Destroyed
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
During an aerial application flight, the pilot initiated a low-level right turn to reverse course. A witness saw the airplane's bank angle increase to vertical, and the airplane subsequently descended into the ground. Examination of the accident site indicated a relatively straight-line impact path with the airplane's right wing tip hitting first followed by the nose. Examination of the wreckage revealed no preexisting mechanical anomalies that would have precluded normal operation; the engine was under power at impact, and the propeller was in the normal operating (not feathered) range. In addition, an autopsy of the pilot did not note any pertinent preexisting medical conditions. The airplane's high angle-of-bank turn, its subsequent descent to ground impact, and the resultant wreckage path were consistent with an accelerated stall.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain adequate airspeed during a low-level, high angle-of-bank turn, which resulted in an exceedance of the critical angle of attack and a subsequent accelerated stall.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA14FA322
- Event ID
- 20140701X04134
- Case number
- ERA14FA322
- 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: d62089ec9991a2223cc1bf4ab3837811c2ce73145845b1dd03afffc6ee212208; retrieved 2026-09-14T17:20:50.912Z.