ERA25LA212 · Air Tractor Inc AT-602
Gibbs Aero Spray Air Tractor Inc AT-602 · Accident: runway excursion during takeoff
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA25LA212
- 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
- Event fatalities
- Unknown
- 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-602
- Aircraft type
- Air Tractor AT-602
- 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
- N260LA
- Operator
- Gibbs Aero Spray
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 9 years (built 2016)
- 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
- Takeoff
- 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
- Runway excursion
- 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 from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot of the aerial application airplane reported that the airplane was near its maximum gross weight with chemicals and fuel onboard. He attempted to take off from a turf and asphalt runway that was 2,650 ft long, beginning with asphalt and then becoming turf about one-third down the runway. The pilot further stated that all engine parameters looked normal during the takeoff roll, but when he attempted to rotate, the airplane did not leave the ground. As the airplane neared the end of the runway, he “pulled” the airplane into the air to clear an 8-ft dike at the end of the runway. The airplane cleared the dike but then settled into a marshy area beyond it, contacting trees and coming to rest upright. The airplane’s fuselage and empennage were substantially damaged during the accident sequence. The pilot stated that there were no preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation and that in the future, when winds are variable, it would be wise to re-assess airplane loading.
Probable cause
The pilot’s inadequate takeoff performance planning, which resulted in a runway overrun and collision with terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA25LA212
- Event ID
- 20250526200206
- Case number
- ERA25LA212
- 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, coordinates, 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: bd6fb7993daca56e1b1b50df0967b6683e2361b626b84e16aeaa0bf9724992d8; retrieved 2026-09-16T19:54:15.349Z.