CEN24LA246 · Air Tractor Inc AT-402
Love Aero Air Tractor Inc AT-402 · Accident: aerodynamic stall/spin during initial climb
From Helm, MS (private airstrip) to Helm, MS (private airstrip)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN24LA246
- 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-402
- Aircraft type
- Air Tractor AT-402
- 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
- N9185K
- Operator
- Love Aero
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Helm, MS (private airstrip)To Helm, MS (private airstrip)
- Aircraft age
- About 31 years (built 1993)
- 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
- 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
- Aerodynamic stall/spin
- 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
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Personnel issues › Psychological
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated that while on takeoff from a 2,200 ft partial concrete and grass private runway, the airplane failed to lift off due to density altitude. He initiated a controlled dump of the hopper load near the end of the runway to increase climb performance. The pilot stated that the airplane then stalled and impacted terrain off the departure end of the private strip, which resulted in substantial damage to both wings, fuselage, and empennage. The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operations. The accident occurred after the pilot had conducted several agricultural spray applications with 350 gallon loads. He stated that temperature had reached 96°F and he should have carried a smaller load since conditions were not favorable. At the time of the accident density altitude had increased to about 2,530 ft.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain control, which resulted in an aerodynamic stall and impact with terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN24LA246
- Event ID
- 20240701194585
- Case number
- CEN24LA246
- 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: e49851dfad66ffc18ae83e57c350711b29e02941ac42117f11b5b482d0c08a71; retrieved 2026-09-16T18:59:10.490Z.