ERA22LA302 · Air Tractor Inc AT-502B
Bank of Utah Trustee Air Tractor Inc AT-502B · Accident while maneuvering
From Tappahannock-Essex County Airport (XSA) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA22LA302
- 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
- 0
- 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
- N50075
- Operator
- Bank of Utah Trustee
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Tappahannock-Essex County Airport (XSA), Tappahannock, VATo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 24 years (built 1998)
- 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
- Unknown or undetermined
- 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 from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that the airplane was fueled before beginning the agricultural application flight. About an hour into the flight, the pilot was climbing the airplane following a spray pass when he heard a “bang” and the engine lost power about 350 ft above ground level (agl). The pilot maneuvered the airplane for a forced landing and stated that the airplane touched down with too much speed. It subsequently bounced and continued into trees, resulting in substantial damage to the airframe. Postaccident examination of the wreckage revealed that there was fuel on board, and examination of the engine did not reveal evidence of any mechanical anomalies that would preclude normal operation. The power turbine blade displayed some rubbing indicative of rotation of the power section at the time of impact; however, the rubbing damage was limited and was consistent with low or reduced power. The reason for the loss of power could not be determined based on the available information.
Probable cause
A loss of engine power for reasons that could not be determined.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA22LA302
- Event ID
- 20220711105439
- Case number
- ERA22LA302
- 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, coordinates, 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: 02df4909d0ed18690bb73bd94f46e83576978842fc8837f138eab38396f8ed56; retrieved 2026-09-16T15:25:58.850Z.