CEN23LA347 · Air Tractor Inc AT-401
Air Tractor Inc AT-401 · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From PRI · Jamestown, ND to Maquoketa Municipal Airport (OQW)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's departure or destination. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN23LA347
- 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
Air Tractor Inc AT-401
- Aircraft type
- Air Tractor AT-401
- 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
- N6015W
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route Possible conflict
- From PRI · Jamestown, NDTo Maquoketa Municipal Airport (OQW), Maquoketa, IA
- Aircraft age
- About 29 years (built 1994)
- 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 91: General Aviation
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The purpose of the flight was to ferry the airplane that the pilot had never flown. During takeoff roll on the narrow (10 ft wide) runway, the pilot advanced the throttle slowly, which resulted in the airplane’s slow acceleration. As the end of the runway approached, the pilot selected full throttle and the airplane lifted off the ground at a slow airspeed. As the airplane climbed out of ground effect, the pilot did not increase airspeed adequately due, in part, to his concern of power lines off the end of the runway. The airplane subsequently entered an aerodynamic stall and impacted terrain, which substantially damaged the right wing.
The pilot reported no preaccident mechanical failures or malfunctions with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation. The pilot likely did not maintain proper airspeed during initial climb, which resulted in the airplane exceeding its critical angle of attack and an aerodynamic stall. The pilot attributed his lack of familiarity with the airplane and the narrow runway as factors to the accident.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain proper airspeed after liftoff, which resulted in the airplane exceeding its critical angle of attack and an aerodynamic stall.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN23LA347
- Event ID
- 20230803192789
- Case number
- CEN23LA347
- 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: f535f20d8def122b84f9f41461de6ad502420aaf65e7b096e8367b051e99cbee; retrieved 2026-09-16T17:57:35.108Z.