GAA15CA023 · Air Tractor Inc AT 602
Pro Agri Spraying Air Tractor Inc AT 602 · Accident: loss of control on ground during landing
From Ropesville, TX (no airport) to Ropesville, TX (no airport)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA15CA023
- 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 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
- N20062
- Operator
- Pro Agri Spraying
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Ropesville, TX (no airport)To Ropesville, TX (no airport)
- Aircraft age
- About 4 years (built 2011)
- 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
- Landing · landing roll
- 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 on ground
- 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, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During an aerial application flight in a tailwheel-equipped airplane, the commercial pilot departed the airstrip with a full load of insecticide, but then realized the airplane was equipped with improper spray nozzles, and returned to the airstrip. Considering the fully loaded configuration, the pilot made one low approach and reported that everything felt normal. On the next approach the pilot touched down on the dirt portion of the runway, applied beta (reverse thrust), and immediately the airplane began yawing to the left. The pilot applied right rudder and right brake but the airplane continued to yaw left. According to the pilot, the tailwheel was not down when beta was applied, which contributed to the subsequent loss of directional control.
The airplane exited the runway to the left and bounced over several crop rows causing the left main landing gear to collapse. The propeller dug into the ground and the airplane nosed over, resulting in substantial damage to the firewall and right wing.
When the airplane came to rest on its back, the pilot remained strapped in, upside down with his helmet on and visor down. The insecticide chemicals immediately began pouring over his face and he had the sensation that he was drowning. The pilot was able to release his seat belt and crawl out of the airplane through the emergency door. The pilot reported no mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain directional control during landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA15CA023
- Event ID
- 20150330X02514
- Case number
- GAA15CA023
- 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: 03854e1d0c8114c5f9e5494ae3c83d72b8215cffd2921d8116016e28673eb0d5; retrieved 2026-09-16T02:11:19.817Z.