ERA17CA251 · Weatherly 620 UNDESIGNAT
Jersey Devil Dusters Weatherly 620 UNDESIGNAT · Accident: collision during takeoff/landing
From Pemberton Twp, NJ (private airstrip) to Pemberton Twp, NJ (private airstrip)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA17CA251
- 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
Weatherly 620 UNDESIGNAT
- Aircraft type
- Weatherly 620
- 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
- N9270W
- Operator
- Jersey Devil Dusters
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Pemberton Twp, NJ (private airstrip)To Pemberton Twp, NJ (private airstrip)
- Aircraft age
- About 37 years (built 1980)
- 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
- Landing
- 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
- Collision during takeoff/landing
- 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
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the pilot, during takeoff, when the agricultural application airplane was about 15 ft above ground level, he noticed a decrease in engine performance, verified that the engine controls were full forward, and turned the fuel boost pump on. He dropped the hopper load; however, the airplane's performance continued to decrease. The pilot chose to land the airplane straight ahead, and the airplane impacted trees before coming to rest inverted in a bog.
Postaccident examination of the airplane revealed substantial damage to the fuselage and wings. Further, after the airplane was removed from the bog, the Federal Aviation Administration inspector who responded to the accident found feathers associated with a Canada goose near the engine and damaged propeller. According to the pilot, there were no preimpact mechanical failures or malfunctions with the airframe or engine that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
An in-flight collision with a bird during takeoff, which resulted in a partial loss of engine power and subsequent collision with trees and terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA17CA251
- Event ID
- 20170720X91857
- Case number
- ERA17CA251
- 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: 8c0f78b98e93227fe6d1202a018933c1ba9ea6576ab1b9aaef9b83c0832083cf; retrieved 2026-09-16T05:34:22.746Z.