CEN18LA270 · Air Tractor AT 602
Aero Charter Express Air Tractor AT 602 · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Vermilion Regional Airport (DNV) to Vermilion Regional Airport (DNV)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN18LA270
- 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
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
- N629LA
- Operator
- Aero Charter Express
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Vermilion Regional Airport (DNV), Danville, ILTo Vermilion Regional Airport (DNV), Danville, IL
- Aircraft age
- About 17 years (built 2001)
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was conducting an aerial application flight; a witness saw the airplane maneuvering before entering a flat spin. Ground scars at accident site were consistent with a wings- and nose-level impact attitude. Examination of the engine and airframe revealed no evidence of mechanical malfunctions or anomalies. The airplane was not equipped with an elevator down-spring or rudder-aileron interconnect system. According to the manufacturer, these systems were required and improved the stability and handling characteristics of the airplane. Although the circumstances of the accident are consistent with a stall/spin and loss of control, the reason for the loss of control could not be determined based on the available information; and whether the lack of the elevator down-spring and rudder-aileron interconnect systems contributed to the loss of control was not determined.
Probable cause
A loss of control for reasons that could not be determined based on the available information.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN18LA270
- Event ID
- 20180713X00848
- Case number
- CEN18LA270
- 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, cause areas. 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: b5069245a96a017f0739fdb1e4f8d5d12b2844450de95841e76cf4c2e31361a1; retrieved 2026-09-16T07:51:04.597Z.