CEN21LA283 · Air Tractor Inc AT-502B
Lutes Flying Service Air Tractor Inc AT-502B · Accident: collision with terrain/object (non-CFIT) while maneuvering
From Elkhart Municipal Airport (EKM) to Elkhart Municipal Airport (EKM)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN21LA283
- 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
- Event fatalities
- Unknown
- 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 Inc AT-502B
- Aircraft type
- Air Tractor AT-502
- 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
- N8523Z
- Operator
- Lutes Flying Service
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Elkhart Municipal Airport (EKM), Elkhart, INTo Elkhart Municipal Airport (EKM), Elkhart, IN
- Aircraft age
- About 16 years (built 2005)
- 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)
- 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
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that while conducting an aerial application pass over a field, the airplane stuck trees and subsequently impacted the ground. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the fuselage, both wings, and empennage. The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical failures or malfunctions with the airplane that would have precluded normal operations. The pilot reported that the field had rising terrain toward its southern edge and as the airplane approached the southern edge, the airplane was unable to climb above the rising terrain. It is likely the pilot failed to identify the rising terrain in time to clear the trees.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to identify rising terrain and to maintain terrain clearance from trees during an aerial application pass that resulted in an in-flight collision with trees and terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN21LA283
- Event ID
- 20210621103306
- Case number
- CEN21LA283
- 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: 92e5e15b051eb1fb10061109028429b2ae0a9ba9efff382914f7f06076790243; retrieved 2026-09-16T14:11:41.728Z.