CEN24LA229 · Aero Commander S2R
Wilde Air Service Aero Commander S2R · Accident: birdstrike while maneuvering
From Brookings Regional Airport (BKX) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN24LA229
- 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
Aero Commander S2R
- Aircraft type
- Aero Commander 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
- N1746S
- Operator
- Wilde Air Service
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Brookings Regional Airport (BKX), Brookings, SDTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 56 years (built 1968)
- 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
- Birdstrike
- 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
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that he was performing a low-level aerial application flight, applying liquid chemical to a rural pasture. As the airplane was climbing out of the pasture, a flock of ducks flew in front of the airplane at about 30 ft agl. Several seconds later, the turboprop engine quit producing thrust. The pilot checked the engine gauges to verify the total loss of engine power, he moved the power lever forward, and he performed a forced landing from about 80 ft agl to a grass field straight ahead. An emergency hopper dump was not performed prior to landing. During the landing, the airplane’s main landing gear sunk into the wet ground. The airplane nosed over and came to rest inverted. The pilot egressed from a broken window on the left-side of the cockpit, as the right-side cockpit door was jammed from the mud.
The airplane sustained substantial damage to the engine mount, fuselage, empennage, and the right wing. Prior to the collision and engine ingestion with ducks, the operator reported there were no preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airframe or the engine that would have precluded normal operation.
Postaccident examination confirmed the duck remains were from a Mallard (Anas platyrhynchos), which is classified as a large dabbling duck. Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) gender-typing confirmed that both male and female Mallard remains were found in the wreckage.
Probable cause
A low-level collision and engine ingestion with ducks, which resulted in a total loss of engine power, a forced landing, and a subsequent nose over.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN24LA229
- Event ID
- 20240618194490
- Case number
- CEN24LA229
- 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: c35b1c245898f9d907b67343891c460859e2b6eff97018f9915bf2d9edb3db7b; retrieved 2026-09-16T18:55:17.668Z.