CEN20LA109 · Air Tractor AT 602
Air Tractor AT 602 · Accident while maneuvering
From Tillar, AR (no airport) to Tillar, AR (no airport)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN20LA109
- 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
- N5197Y
- Operator
- David Moss
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Tillar, AR (no airport)To Tillar, AR (no airport)
- Aircraft age
- About 21 years (built 1999)
- 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
- Miscellaneous/other
- 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
- Pole
- 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
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
- Personnel issues › Psychological
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that after completing a low-level aerial application over a field, he executed a trim pass on the north side of the field. While flying between 160 and 180 mph, the airplane’s propeller impacted a metal bracket attached to the top of a 35-ft power line pole. After the impact, there were "extreme" vibrations throughout the engine and airframe, and oil from the engine coated the front three windshield panels. The pilot attempted to clear the oil with the windshield wiper system but was not successful. The pilot maneuvered the airplane to perform an emergency landing to a dirt road about 1/2 mile north of the power line pole. Both wings and the rudder sustained substantial damage during the forced landing.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain clearance from a power line pole during a low-level aerial application flight, which resulted in impact with the bracket and a subsequent forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN20LA109
- Event ID
- 20200225X74134
- Case number
- CEN20LA109
- 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: 6407421fce2c5b779a1db2c16aac9f246525c09bd7c8c5ac71f766f5ceb6e345; retrieved 2026-09-16T11:10:30.249Z.