CEN20LA279 · Air Tractor AT502 B
Bailey Flying Service Air Tractor AT502 B · Accident: loss of engine power (total) en route
From Dalhart Municipal Airport (DHT) to Dalhart Municipal Airport (DHT)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN20LA279
- 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
- N61315
- Operator
- Bailey Flying Service
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Dalhart Municipal Airport (DHT), Dalhart, TXTo Dalhart Municipal Airport (DHT), Dalhart, TX
- Aircraft age
- About 25 years (built 1995)
- 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
- En route · cruise
- 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)
- 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
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The operator reported that the pilot was returning to the airport after completing an aerial application when the engine lost power. The pilot executed a forced landing to a pasture. An engine examination revealed that the fuel control unit (FCU) input drive shaft would not rotate. Further examination established that the FCU input drive spool bearing had failed; however, the cause of the bearing failure could not be determined. Maintenance records indicated that the FCU was within the inspection and overhaul requirements recommended by the manufacturer.
Probable cause
The total loss of engine power due to a failed fuel control unit bearing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN20LA279
- Event ID
- 20200713X05556
- Case number
- CEN20LA279
- 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, 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: 0208f5b23a1dfb219861c3dd79afadd31a4d0c0dc9c8c786907c6e03e0b8748d; retrieved 2026-09-16T12:05:57.731Z.