CEN20CA221 · Air Tractor AT502 B
Air Tractor AT502 B · Accident: collision with terrain/object (non-CFIT) during takeoff
From Hiawatha Municipal Airport (K87) to Hiawatha Municipal Airport (K87)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN20CA221
- 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 AT502 B
- Aircraft type
- Air Tractor AT502
- 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
- N5092J
- Operator
- Mcelwain, Floyd W · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Hiawatha Municipal Airport (K87), Hiawatha, KSTo Hiawatha Municipal Airport (K87), Hiawatha, KS
- Aircraft age
- About 23 years (built 1997)
- 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
- Takeoff
- 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
- Collision with terrain/object (non-CFIT)
- 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
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Prior to the aerial application flight, the airplane was loaded with about 3,400 pounds (lbs) of dry fertilizer and contained about 140 gallons of fuel. The airplane’s estimated weight at the time of the accident was 9,000 lbs, with a maximum gross weight of 9,400 lbs. The pilot reported the temperature was about 95° F, the wind was from 150°; about 6 knots, and runway 35 was rough with tall grass. The calculated density altitude was about 3,900 ft. During the takeoff, the pilot attempted to rotate; however, "the aircraft was not ready to fly." The airplane impacted a field about 500 ft north of the runway. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the forward fuselage. The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical failures or malfunctions with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation. The pilot's recommendation to prevent the accident was "carry lighter loads, less fuel on hot days."
Probable cause
The pilot’s decision to attempt the takeoff with a tailwind in high density altitude conditions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN20CA221
- Event ID
- 20200608X15025
- Case number
- CEN20CA221
- 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: 0cd136a609e3bd0c521bcd52fadecded14f2adb05099a9a51c0cf33c1f1b5e68; retrieved 2026-09-16T11:47:41.243Z.