CEN15LA367 · Air Tractor Inc AT-802A
Reynolds Flying Service Air Tractor Inc AT-802A · Accident: low altitude operation/event while maneuvering
From McCrory / Morton Airport (7M0) to McCrory / Morton Airport (7M0)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN15LA367
- 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-802A
- Aircraft type
- Air Tractor AT-802
- 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
- N3070R
- Operator
- Reynolds Flying Service
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From McCrory / Morton Airport (7M0), McCrory, ARTo McCrory / Morton Airport (7M0), McCrory, AR
- Aircraft age
- About 2 years (built 2013)
- 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
- Pole
- 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
- Personnel issues › Psychological
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, not marked as estimated; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The commercial pilot was conducting a local agricultural application flight when the airplane collided with a utility pole that was located along the border of the field being sprayed. A witness reported hearing the pilot transmit over the radio that he had "messed up" and that his airplane had collided with a pole. The pilot also reported having an unspecified flight control issue following the collision. The witness stated that the airplane remained in level flight for about 1 mile before it entered a slow right roll and descended into a forested area. Postaccident examination established that the airplane's right wingtip had impacted near the top of the 30-ft-tall utility pole. The examination did not reveal any anomalies that would have precluded normal operation of the airplane before the collision. It is likely that the collision with the utility pole damaged the right aileron, which resulted in an uncontrolled right roll and subsequent descent into terrain.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain clearance from a utility pole while maneuvering during an agricultural application flight, which resulted in damage to the right aileron and a subsequent uncontrolled right roll at a low altitude.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN15LA367
- Event ID
- 20150819X94949
- Case number
- CEN15LA367
- 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: 825f7001eedcf101f2b2fa36c562f1698ed2765e8928f64628bfb29be7d71aa7; retrieved 2026-09-14T21:28:54.778Z.