ERA20LA220 · Robinson R66
Kritter Cropdusting Robinson R66 · Accident: collision with terrain/object (non-CFIT) while maneuvering
From Pikeville, NC to Pikeville, NC
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA20LA220
- 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
- 1 · 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
Robinson R66
- Aircraft type
- Robinson R66
- Category
- Helicopter
- 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
- N4QW
- Operator
- Kritter Cropdusting
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Pikeville, NCTo Pikeville, NC
- Aircraft age
- About 7 years (built 2013)
- 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
- Collision with terrain/object (non-CFIT)
- 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
- Wire
- 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
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was applying insecticide to a farm field and the accident flight was the first time the pilot had sprayed the field. Once he arrived at the site, 3 hours late, the pilot conducted two circular passes to survey the field, then landed, and the ground crew loaded the insecticide into the hopper. The pilot was not briefed of any hazards to operations prior to the flight by the ground crew or farmer. After takeoff, the pilot started applying the chemicals. The helicopter was performing the spraying operation and was flying on a northerly heading when it impacted a non-energized wire. The wire was mounted about 30 feet up a 40 ft pole that also contained a hunting stand and stretched about 250 ft across the field from west to east where it connected to a tree bordering the field. The wire had been installed at least 20 years earlier and was installed high enough that a tractor or combine had clearance to move beneath it during harvest. Clear daylight conditions existed at the time of the accident. The sun was at 39.85° above the horizon at an azimuth of 272.39° and was very close to being directly in line with the wire. It is possible that the sun’s position relative to the wire would have made the 5/16-inch wire more difficult to see as the shadow of the wire and pole would have been nearly directly under the wire rather than offset. The pilot, unfamiliar with the field, running late, and without the benefit of a detailed discussion with the landowner, relied solely on his brief visual surveillance of the field while operating the helicopter. Although the pilot likely observed the pole and hunting stand during his surveillance, it is likely that he did not see the wire due to its small diameter. Therefore, shortly after initiating the application of the insecticide, the pilot’s failure to see and avoid the wire resulted in the helicopter impacting the wire and the pilot’s subsequent loss of control and impact with terrain.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to see and avoid a small diameter wire during low altitude agricultural spraying operations. Contributing to the accident was the pilot’s insufficient property survey.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA20LA220
- Event ID
- 20200618X83813
- Case number
- ERA20LA220
- 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: 3547ac3710145407be6fa5178b465fb52f040a68eed7b7207cd00254a2c5d4ae; retrieved 2026-09-15T07:16:22.932Z.