CEN22LA335 · Ayres Corporation S2R-T34
Air Aids Ayres Corporation S2R-T34 · Accident: low altitude operation/event while maneuvering
From Earle, AR to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN22LA335
- 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
Ayres Corporation S2R-T34
- Aircraft type
- Ayres 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
- N4046S
- Operator
- Air Aids
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Earle, ARTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 23 years (built 1999)
- 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
- Low altitude operation/event
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Wire
- 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
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
- Not determined › Not determined
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot had made multiple aerial application flights before the accident flight. Automatic dependent surveillance - broadcast (ADS-B) data showed that the airplane made multiple passes over the field north of the tower, which was located in the field. During the final pass over the field, the airplane turned north toward the western guy wires. The airplane struck the guy wires and impacted the terrain north of the tower.
The operator’s representative stated that the pilot had been briefed about the field’s obstructions, specifically the location of the tower and its guy wires located in the intended field to be sprayed with fungicide. He stated that the pilot had previously flown over the field more than once.
The airplane was destroyed by postcrash fire and impact forces, which prevented confirmation of flight control continuity. The propeller displayed S-shaped bending consistent with power generation. No mechanical anomalies that would have precluded normal airplane operation were noted.
Toxicology testing revealed that the pilot had used cannabis. The psychoactive compounds delta-9-THC and delta-8-THC were detected in his heart blood at low concentrations. THC can decrease vigilance and has effects for several hours. However, because of the fat storage and slow release of THC, low concentrations in blood can reflect use several days ago. How recent or frequent the pilot’s use of cannabis was unknown, as was the type of product. Given these unknowns, while the pilot was found to have cannabis in his system, it could not be determined if the concentration would have been impairing and influenced his vigilance about avoiding the antenna hazard.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain clearance from tower guy wires while maneuvering.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN22LA335
- Event ID
- 20220725105562
- Case number
- CEN22LA335
- 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: 2e2c66bca6bb48946a14aac85e0f108f43577107fa1cc2fb539207dfd1d95de9; retrieved 2026-09-15T07:48:18.366Z.