GAA18CA502 · WSK PZL Mielec M-18A
Jersey Devil Dusters WSK PZL Mielec M-18A · Accident: low altitude operation/event while maneuvering
From Hornell Municipal Airport (HTF) to Hornell Municipal Airport (HTF)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA18CA502
- 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
WSK PZL Mielec M-18A
- Aircraft type
- WSK PZL Mielec M-18
- 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
- N851EJ
- Operator
- Jersey Devil Dusters
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Hornell Municipal Airport (HTF), Hornell, NYTo Hornell Municipal Airport (HTF), Hornell, NY
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- 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
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that he was performing an agricultural application flight to a corn field, which had a tree line running west to east on the north side of the field and another tree line running north to south on the east end of the field. He was making application passes from east to west and started at the south side of the field progressing northward toward the tree line with each pass. He added that he noticed that the wind speed increased to about 10 to 12 mph. During the second to last spray pass, while heading west, he came over the east end tree line and descended close to the corn. About 300 ft into the field, the airplane began to descend rapidly, and he pitched the airplane's nose up. He added that the descent continued and that the airplane began to lose airspeed. The landing gear struck the corn, and the airplane impacted terrain and came to rest inverted.
The pilot added that he believed a combination of descending air that rolled over the north line of trees, wind shear, the low-altitude flying, and reduced margin of error for the proper application of pesticide caused the accident.
The airplane sustained substantial damage to the empennage.
The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical failures or malfunctions with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
A weather station, located about 3 miles northeast of the accident site reported, about the time of the accident, temperature 85.3°F, dew point 68.3°F, and wind from 293° at 6 mph, gusting to 8 mph.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain clearance from crops during an agricultural application flight.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA18CA502
- Event ID
- 20180804X12805
- Case number
- GAA18CA502
- 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: 2d85303eb1af4948f8249795c374e5183ca927ce13552a318595a001ecafccd5; retrieved 2026-09-16T08:02:42.056Z.