WPR23LA120 · Grumman Acft ENG COR-Schweizer G-164B
Grumman Acft ENG COR-Schweizer G-164B · Accident: low altitude operation/event while maneuvering
From Westley Airport (CA67) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR23LA120
- 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
Grumman Acft ENG COR-Schweizer G-164B
- Aircraft type
- Grumman G-164
- 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
- N48492
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Westley Airport (CA67), Vernalis, CATo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 47 years (built 1976)
- 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
- Personnel issues › Psychological
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 he was spraying near power lines during an aerial application flight. He made several passes beneath a power line; however, during a subsequent pass, the pilot became distracted and struck the power line. The airplane impacted the ground and was destroyed by post-crash fire. The pilot reported no preaccident mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operations.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain clearance from a power line during a low-level aerial application flight.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR23LA120
- Event ID
- 20230307106836
- Case number
- WPR23LA120
- 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, 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: 86e93f551e0be9793ab20c1032b3eefc025aeaff8b82627e8d058822f7947696; retrieved 2026-09-16T17:23:40.568Z.
- Corrected after a review of the NTSB narrative, which states these values explicitly: damage. Narrative states the airplane impacted the ground and was destroyed by post-crash fire.