CEN17LA272 · Piper PA-25-235
Bloomfield AG and Aerial Service Piper PA-25-235 · Accident: low altitude operation/event while maneuvering
From Bloomfield Municipal Airport (84Y) to Bloomfield Municipal Airport (84Y)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN17LA272
- 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
Piper PA-25-235
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-25
- 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
- N7388Z
- Operator
- Bloomfield AG and Aerial Service
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Bloomfield Municipal Airport (84Y), Bloomfield, NETo Bloomfield Municipal Airport (84Y), Bloomfield, NE
- Aircraft age
- About 52 years (built 1965)
- 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
- Tree(s)
- 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 from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The commercial pilot was conducting an agricultural aerial application flight. A witness stated that he observed the airplane as it started spraying chemical along the east side of a cornfield. The airplane made a turn at the north end of the field and then started a second pass heading south. When the airplane was about midway down the field, the witness observed blue smoke coming from the airplane for a distance of about 150 to 200 ft. (The airplane was equipped with a smoke marker, which produced blue smoke to aid in lining up spray runs and provide wind drift indications near the ground.) The witness estimated that the airplane's speed was about 100 mph at that time. The airplane then clipped a tree, which was about 30 to 40 ft in height, at the south end of the field; rolled inverted; and impacted terrain. This witness did not see the airplane crash because he lost sight of the airplane behind a line of trees. Two other witnesses stated that they had heard a "popping" noise before the airplane crashed. The first witness stated that he did not hear anything out of the ordinary, including the reported popping noise, but indicated that his all-terrain vehicle and its radio were operating at the time.
A postaccident examination of the airplane wreckage found the airplane's right position light along with one-quarter of the right wingtip lying next to the base of the tree that was struck. The main wreckage was found about 360 ft from the tree. The damage to the airplane was consistent with a steep, nose-down attitude at the time of ground impact. The flight controls exhibited continuity from the cockpit to the control surfaces. The propeller blades exhibited "S" bending and chordwise scratching, which was consistent with the engine producing power at the time of impact. The pilot had flown 17.5 hours in the accident airplane before the accident occurred, which was also his total flight experience as an agricultural pilot.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain clearance from trees during a low-level agricultural aerial application flight.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN17LA272
- Event ID
- 20170718X61108
- Case number
- CEN17LA272
- 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: 43801f34756f524f61812becf8f4526184c31d109c2f770324c9922f8ae33faf; retrieved 2026-09-16T05:33:20.342Z.