WPR16FA120 · Rockwell S2R
Rockwell S2R · Accident: low altitude operation/event while maneuvering
From Tekoa, WA to De Smet, ID
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR16FA120
- 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
Rockwell S2R
- Aircraft type
- Rockwell S2
- 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
- N4191X
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Tekoa, WATo De Smet, ID
- Aircraft age
- About 42 years (built 1974)
- 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
- Tower/antenna (incl guy wires)
- 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 › Physical environment
- Personnel issues › Psychological
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During an aerial application flight to apply fungicide to a wheat field, the pilot was flying the airplane from west to east making a spray pass along the south edge of the field, which was bordered by powerlines. About 660 ft. from the west end of the field where the pilot started his spray pass, a set of guy wires originated from the top of one of the utility poles that supported the powerlines, extended about 65 ft. into the field, and ran directly perpendicular to and in line with the airplane's flight path. However, the pilot failed to maintain clearance with the guy wires, and the airplane's outboard right wing impacted the wires. The airplane subsequently veered right and impacted the powerlines, crossed a road that bordered the field on the south, and collided with a stand of trees. The airplane came to rest within the stand of trees about 490 ft. southeast of the initial impact point with the guy wires. Examination of the airframe and engine revealed no evidence of mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation. Given that the sun was very close to the horizon and would have been almost directly in the pilot's eyes as he attempted to avoid the guy wires, it is likely that sun glare contributed to his difficulty in maintaining clearance from the wires.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate visual lookout, which resulted in his failure to maintain clearance from guy wires during an aerial application flight. Contributing to the accident was the pilot's reduced ability to see the guy wires due to sun glare.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR16FA120
- Event ID
- 20160606X24551
- Case number
- WPR16FA120
- 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. 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: aa01540d6207c7214cd4b36a325ccd8410f18b5e7f26bcb4bda264f438afd7d4; retrieved 2026-09-14T21:48:19.243Z.