GAA17CA321 · AG-CAT Corporation G 164 B
Macys Flying Service AG-CAT Corporation G 164 B · Accident: part(s) separation from aircraft while maneuvering
From Tulelake Municipal Airport (O81) to Tulelake Municipal Airport (O81)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA17CA321
- 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
AG-CAT Corporation G 164 B
- Aircraft type
- Ag Cat 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
- N80083
- Operator
- Macys Flying Service
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Tulelake Municipal Airport (O81), Tulelake, CATo Tulelake Municipal Airport (O81), Tulelake, CA
- Aircraft age
- About 19 years (built 1998)
- 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
- Part(s) separation from aircraft
- 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 › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that he was maneuvering to perform an agricultural application. He noticed a ground application operator was located inside of the cab of the ground application equipment. The pilot decided to perform a "close fly-by" over the ground equipment. The left main landing gear struck the ground equipment cab, and the pilot chose to return to the airport. He landed on the gravel taxiway that paralleled the runway. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the left main landing gear attachment points.
Per the National Transportation Safety Board Pilot Aircraft Accident Report, the pilot reported that the accident could have been prevented if "the pilot [had] used better judgement and not done a close fly-by the ground application equipment," which was also owned by the operator.
The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot’s improper decision to perform a low altitude fly-by over ground equipment, which resulted in the airplane striking the equipment.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA17CA321
- Event ID
- 20170605X33455
- Case number
- GAA17CA321
- 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: edea350e91a5dc5a1e062d7e56ff71273fa3b04d924956723f1f13653f1605f5; retrieved 2026-09-16T05:22:19.355Z.