WPR18LA222 · Air Tractor AT802 A
Air Spray USA Air Tractor AT802 A · Accident: loss of engine power (total) while maneuvering
From Deer Park Airport (DEW) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR18LA222
- 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
- Government
- 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 AT802 A
- Aircraft type
- Air Tractor AT802
- 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
- N397AS
- Operator
- Air Spray USA
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Deer Park Airport (DEW), Deer Park, WATo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 4 years (built 2014)
- 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
- Public Aircraft
- 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 engine power (total)
- 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 power plant
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The accident airplane was one of three public aircraft that were supporting firefighting operations. The three airplanes had made four successful water drops and had just scooped water from a river to make a fifth drop. The airplanes were in a climb en route to the drop location when the pilot of the accident airplane heard a “loud bang” followed by a total loss of engine power. The pilot made a forced landing to treetops in a heavily forested area. During the on-site examination, a coat of oil was observed on the cowling and one of the wings. Damage was also observed to the engine. The engine examination revealed that a second-stage power turbine blade exhibited fatigue signatures, and molten debris was identified throughout the engine. The debris was subsequently identified as environmental particles, but the source of the debris was not determined from the available evidence for this investigation. The loss of engine power was likely due to the accumulation of foreign melted environmental debris on the engine’s hot section components, which resulted in the first- and second-stage power turbine blades fracturing from tensile overload.
Probable cause
A total loss of engine power during a climb due to an accumulation of molten environmental particles, the source of which could not be determined based on the available evidence, which resulted in a forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR18LA222
- Event ID
- 20180814X14134
- Case number
- WPR18LA222
- 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, 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: ab0f03b5d50212bc286e351973b6e27e9d7ec15c70fb9d8e73d8073882c4762c; retrieved 2026-09-16T08:05:33.759Z.