GAA15CA266 · Schweizer Aircraft Corp G 164B
McClung Aerial Spraying Schweizer Aircraft Corp G 164B · Accident: low altitude operation/event while maneuvering
From Paxton, NE (private airstrip) to Paxton, NE (private airstrip)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA15CA266
- 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
Schweizer Aircraft Corp G 164B
- Aircraft type
- Schweizer G-164
- 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
- N3628Z
- Operator
- Mcclung Aerial Spraying
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Paxton, NE (private airstrip)To Paxton, NE (private airstrip)
- Aircraft age
- About 31 years (built 1984)
- 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
- Wire
- 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 structures
- Personnel issues › Psychological
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 during an agricultural application flight, he was making spray passes under a power line. During the last pass, the left wing of the airplane struck the power line, and the airplane descended and impacted the ground. The pilot exited the airplane, and a postcrash fire ensued.
The pilot reported that he believed he encountered a dust devil which caused the left wing to rise and contact the power line. About the time of the accident, a nearby weather reporting station was reporting, temperature 90 degrees Fahrenheit and wind from 120 degrees true at 4 knots.
The pilot reported no preimpact mechanical failures or malfunctions with the airframe or engine that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain adequate distance from a power line during low altitude flight operations, which resulted in an impact with the power line, and subsequent impact with the ground.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA15CA266
- Event ID
- 20150922X30936
- Case number
- GAA15CA266
- 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: 5462ac2e34a1642e5bc83b6eb0dc7a1c0388bf04d8aedc5eb3284e9fe6b7b677; retrieved 2026-09-16T02:47:58.100Z.