CEN24FA260 · Air Tractor Inc AT-502B
McGinty Flying Service Air Tractor Inc AT-502B and ArklaFlyers Air Tractor Inc AT-802A · Accident: midair collision while maneuvering
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN24FA260
- 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
Aircraft 1 · Air Tractor Inc AT-502B
- Aircraft type
- Air Tractor AT-502
- 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
- N6177J
- Operator
- Mcginty Flying Service
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Jones, LATo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 29 years (built 1995)
- 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
- Midair collision
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Aircraft 2 · Air Tractor Inc AT-802A
- Aircraft type
- Air Tractor AT-802
- 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
- N795LA
- Operator
- ArklaFlyers
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Bonita, LATo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 1 year (built 2023)
- 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
- Not recorded
- 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
- Not recorded
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Minor
Cause areas
- Personnel issues › Psychological
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Both agricultural airplanes were en route to their respective agricultural aerial application locations when they collided about 175 ft above ground level (agl). After the collision, N6177J descended into the terrain and was destroyed and N795LA sustained minor damage and landed at the departure airstrip. According to the pilot of N795LA, he departed the private airstrip and observed N6177J about 100 ft to his left at the same altitude. He pulled back on the control stick to avoid N6177J. Shortly after he felt an impact and heard a bang, but he was able to control the airplane after the collision. The two pilots were not communicating by radio. The investigation revealed that both pilots were in positions to see the other airplane in time to avoid a collision. An examination of both airplanes revealed no evidence of any preexisting malfunctions or failures that would have prevented normal operation. The toxicology results for the pilot of N6177J indicated that he had used the medications oxybutynin and diphenhydramine, both of which have a potential to cause sedation and cognitive and psychomotor slowing. Although the pilot may have been experiencing impairing effects of these medications at the time of the accident, no more specific conclusions about his impairment could be drawn. Additionally, his autopsy report indicated atherosclerotic disease, which is associated with some increased risk of experiencing a sudden impairing or incapacitating cardiovascular event, such as arrhythmia, heart attack, or stroke. There was no autopsy evidence that such an event occurred; however, such an event does not leave reliable autopsy evidence if it occurs immediately before death.
Probable cause
The failure of both pilots to see and avoid the other airplane while at low altitude enroute to their aerial application flights.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN24FA260
- Event ID
- 20240711194675
- Case number
- CEN24FA260
- 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: f98b08412f8750213f781152020b807e67c72be7755560d4430de307fb07336f; retrieved 2026-09-13T18:12:05.925Z.