CEN18FA263 · Air Tractor AT-602
D-Ger Air Tractor AT-602 · Accident: low altitude operation/event while maneuvering
From Frank Federer Memorial Airport (M36) to Frank Federer Memorial Airport (M36)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN18FA263
- 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
Air Tractor AT-602
- Aircraft type
- Air Tractor AT-602
- 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
- N8508P
- Operator
- D-Ger
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Frank Federer Memorial Airport (M36), Brinkley, ARTo Frank Federer Memorial Airport (M36), Brinkley, AR
- Aircraft age
- About 15 years (built 2003)
- 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
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Not determined › Not determined
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, not marked as estimated; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
A witness reported that the commercial pilot departed on the agricultural application flight to spray a 40-acre field about 5 miles from the airport. He reported that the pilot had loaded the airplane with 400 gallons of chemical before the flight and that the airplane's fuel tanks were full. There were no witnesses to the accident. The wreckage was found in a wooded area between two open fields about 1/3 mile west of the application field. Examination of the accident site indicated that the airplane impacted the top of a berm in an approximate wings-level attitude. Flight control continuity could not be established from the flight controls to their respective attach points on the flight control surfaces due to impact and fire damage; however, all control separations were consistent with overload failure or fire damage. Examination of the engine and propeller revealed characteristics consistent with significant engine power at the time of impact. Examination revealed no anomalies and that would have precluded normal operation of the airframe or engine.
The airplane's wings-level impact attitude is not consistent with a loss of control, and there was no indication of a wire or tree strike either in the wreckage or in the area surrounding the accident site. Toxicology testing and autopsy of the pilot revealed no evidence of physiological impairment or incapacitation; therefore, the reason the pilot did not maintain clearance from terrain could not be determined.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain clearance from terrain for reasons that could not be determined based on the available evidence.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN18FA263
- Event ID
- 20180711X93304
- Case number
- CEN18FA263
- 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: b703b5641952ed9884eb09f0b8184e69d4082cf6914ced52d242b871f2a6390f; retrieved 2026-09-15T06:44:01.217Z.