WPR24FA255 · Air Tractor Inc AT-802A
Wakefield Aircraft Air Tractor Inc AT-802A · Accident while maneuvering
From Burns Municipal Airport (BNO) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR24FA255
- 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
- Ongoing
- 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
- Government
- 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-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
- N805DG
- Operator
- Wakefield Aircraft
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Burns Municipal Airport (BNO), Burns, ORTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 21 years (built 2003)
- 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
- Public Aircraft
- 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
- Unknown or undetermined
- 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
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
On July 25, 2024, about 1800 mountain daylight time, an Air Tractor AT-802A, N805DG, was destroyed when it was involved in an accident near Izee, Oregon. The pilot was fatally injured. The airplane was operated as public use for the purpose of firefighting. Witnesses reported that the airplane was supporting fire-fighting suppression operations and operating out of Burns Municipal Airport (BNO), Burns, Oregon. While the flight of two airplanes were enroute for their third drop, about 15 miles west from their fire suppression site, the pilot who was in the trailing airplane saw the accident airplane, who was in the lead position, maneuver away from column of smoke, near the northwestern corner of an active Temporary Fright Restrictions (TFR) for Falls fire. The trailing pilot reported that he did not want to maneuver through the TFR corner due to visibility concerns and that the accident pilot agreed and told him to take over the lead position. The trailing pilot turned to the west and saw the accident pilot maneuver his airplane to a trailing position behind him. A few seconds later, the pilot lost sight of the accident airplane. Preliminary radar data showed that the accident airplane maneuvered to an in-trail position behind the other airplane, and shortly after, initiated a right turn to the northeast. The last recorded radar data target showed that the airplane was about 700 ft about the ground (agl), at a groundspeed of 175 knots, on a northerly heading, about 0.9 miles south of the accident site. The airplane impacted terrain about 30 nautical miles north-northwest from BNO. Examination of the accident site revealed that the wreckage debris path was about 1,000 ft in length, and oriented on a heading of about 240° magnetic. The first identified point of contact (FIPC) was a series of damaged trees. The debris path extended about 280 ft to a ground scar, that was consistent with the left wing. A large tree, located about 380 ft from the FIPC had impact marks on the side of it. Pieces of the hopper, engine, propeller, and fuselage were found near the tree. All major components of the airplane were observed throughout the debris path. The forward area of the fuselage came to rest upright against a tree, on a magnetic heading of about 060°, at an elevation of 5,730 ft mean sea level. The airplane was recovered to a secure location for further examination.
Figure 1: Radar data with the accident site, departure airport and fire suppression site locations.
Verbatim NTSB factual narrative from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR24FA255
- Event ID
- 20240726194774
- Case number
- WPR24FA255
- 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: local date, investigation status, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2024-07-26.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 9bce7fefcd7472077b7f7eee7a882746a6cd64ed7436021a3debd2a486281993; retrieved 2026-09-15T08:25:25.726Z.
- Corrected after a review of the NTSB narrative, which states these values explicitly: damage. The preliminary narrative states the Air Tractor AT-802A was destroyed; it impacted wooded terrain with a debris path about 1,000 ft long.