CEN16LA292 · Air Tractor Inc AT 402
Watson Ag Aviation Air Tractor Inc AT 402 · Accident: controlled flight into terrain/object (CFIT) while maneuvering
From Arthur N Neu Airport (CIN) to Sac City Municipal Airport (SKI)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN16LA292
- 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
- 0
- 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 402
- Aircraft type
- Air Tractor AT-402
- 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
- N1016G
- Operator
- Watson Ag Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Arthur N Neu Airport (CIN), Carroll, IATo Sac City Municipal Airport (SKI), Sac City, IA
- Aircraft age
- About 27 years (built 1989)
- 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
- 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
- Controlled flight into terrain/object (CFIT)
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The commercial pilot was performing an aerial application flight to an area that a ground crewman described as a "wire farm" due to the number of power lines present. The pilot did not complete a circling pass over the target field to identify hazards before descending for the first aerial application pass. The pilot flew over a set of power lines, activated the airplane's spray function, and completed one pass to the north. The airplane then climbed and made a left turn before descending toward the west side of the target field for a pass to the south. The pilot completed a pass on the west side, then impacted power lines on the south side of the field. The airplane continued south and impacted a corn field, where it came to rest upright. The top of the vertical stabilizer and the rudder were found near the power lines.
A postaccident examination of the airplane revealed evidence of multiple wire strikes to the canopy, wire protection system, and empennage. At least one wire was deflected over the canopy, along the wire deflector cable, and cut through the vertical stabilizer and rudder. At least one wire impacted the aluminum wire protection bar and the cockpit structure consistent with the wire not deflecting over the canopy. The examination did not reveal any preimpact anomalies that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain adequate clearance from power lines. Contributing to the accident was the pilot's failure to circle over the field to identify hazards before beginning the aerial application.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN16LA292
- Event ID
- 20160729X45721
- Case number
- CEN16LA292
- 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: bae73a82b55366fc6421d0e7c4649ec406e7deed4d5351a8763a6376ca64e38c; retrieved 2026-09-14T21:57:24.142Z.