CEN20LA294 · Rockwell S2R
Slater's Spray Service Rockwell S2R · Accident: part(s) separation from aircraft while maneuvering
From Harlan Municipal Airport (HNR) to Harlan Municipal Airport (HNR)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN20LA294
- 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
Rockwell S2R
- Aircraft type
- Rockwell S2
- 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
- N1662S
- Operator
- Slater's Spray Service
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Harlan Municipal Airport (HNR), Harlan, IATo Harlan Municipal Airport (HNR), Harlan, IA
- Aircraft age
- About 47 years (built 1973)
- 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
- Part(s) separation from aircraft
- 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 structures
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot of the aerial application flight was spraying a field when the top portion of the rudder partially separated from the airplane. The airplane yawed abruptly left and remained in an uncontrollable left yaw for about 10 to 15 minutes, at times pitching uncontrollably downward until the broken portion of the rudder separated. The airplane landed without further incident. Postaccident metallurgical examination of the upper rudder hinge revealed a fatigue fracture.
Probable cause
The fatigue fracture of the upper rudder hinge that resulted in a partial separation of the rudder from the airplane during a spray pass.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN20LA294
- Event ID
- 20200721X00448
- Case number
- CEN20LA294
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
Source notes (5)
- 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: 7c4572820d2ba43e3136f6c35023180bfe8ffdcff9da207a34718e9f35f04b56; retrieved 2026-09-16T12:12:47.310Z.
- Corrected after a review of the NTSB narrative, which states these values explicitly: departure, destination. HNR is Harlan Municipal Airport in Harlan, IA, which is also the recorded accident location; the city name is misspelled. HNR is Harlan Municipal Airport in Harlan, IA, which is also the recorded accident location; the city name is misspelled.