CEN20LA278 · Grumman G164 B
Reid Aviation & Aerial Spraying Grumman G164 B · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Springfield Municipal Airport (8V7) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN20LA278
- 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
Grumman G164 B
- Aircraft type
- Grumman G164
- 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
- N6917K
- Operator
- Reid Aviation & Aerial Spraying
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Springfield Municipal Airport (8V7), Springfield, COTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 41 years (built 1979)
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot had just departed the airport to perform an aerial application flight utilizing a combination of a herbicide and fertilizers. An employee of the operator reported that the pilot was having issues with foam exiting from the hopper, which was located in front of the cockpit. The pilot had returned to the airport prior to the accident to add more de-foaming agent to the hopper and had activated the circulating pump to correct the problem. The pilot took off and a witness reported observing white smoke coming from the cockpit prior to impact; however, the smoke was "granular in nature" and "looked solid." The airplane impacted a remote flat field, a postimpact fire ensued, and the airplane was destroyed.
After the accident, the pilot reported to his wife, that there was a reaction of the chemicals in the hopper, and it was foaming “really bad” while in flight. The foam was coming out of the hopper, and it covered the windshield. The pilot reported he couldn’t see while flying.
A postaccident examination of the airplane did not reveal any mechanical anomalies.
The airplane hopper had been loaded with a glyphosate herbicide, Atarrus fertilizer, and Kugler KQ-XRN fertilizer. The Kugler fertilizer technical sheet contained a caution stating that when mixing KQ-XRN with phosphate, sulfur, humic acid, and products containing glyphosate, a chemical foaming reaction may occur. Kugler also recommended performing a jar test when mixing KQ-XRN with any pesticides and fertilizers. Postaccident testing of the chemicals used by the pilot produced significant foam when they were combined and agitated. Neither the pilot nor the ground crew performed the recommended jar test.
It is likely the pilot was unable to maintain control during flight due his view from the cockpit being obscured from foam originating from the hopper, which resulted in an impact with terrain. The foam was the result of the mix of chemicals used in the hopper, which was a combination known to produce foam, and the pilot did not perform a jar test prior to flying with the chemicals as recommended. Had a jar test been performed the pilot likely would have recognized the foaming problem and adjusted the chemical mixture appropriately.
Probable cause
The pilot’s loss of visibility in the cockpit due to foam created by the chemicals loaded in the hopper, which resulted in collision with terrain. Contributing to the accident was the combining of chemicals known to produce foam and the pilot’s failure to perform a jar test prior to flight as recommended.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN20LA278
- Event ID
- 20200713X03310
- Case number
- CEN20LA278
- 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: af021479b40a748587800adb6a6622eeeffecdb28536a2ade5cdc4791814b280; retrieved 2026-09-15T07:17:15.467Z.