Spraying (Agricultural)

While flying at low height on a spraying mission, the pilot-in-command complete a sharp turn when the aircraft banked to an angle of 50°, stalled and crashed in a field. Both occupants were injured.

The crew was engaged to treat weeds on behalf of the State Farm of Baumansky, in the Leninsky district. The crew completed a lot of sorties during four consecutive days and several operations were also conducted by night. While flying at a relative low height, the aircraft rolled to the left to an angle of 45° then lost altitude and crashed in a field 1,000 meters from the takeoff area, bursting into flames. Both occupants were seriously injured but the captain died from his injuries few hours later. The aircraft was destroyed by fire.

While engaged in a spraying mission, the single engine aircraft struck the ground and crashed. The exact circumstances of the accident remains unknown as well as the occupant's fate.

Crashed after the crew got distracted in flight. There were no casualties.

Crashed following an engine failure. Crew fate unknown.

The single engine aircraft after the crew got distracted in flight. Occupant fate unknown.

En route, the engine failed due to fuel exhaustion. The crew attempted an emergency landing when the aircraft crashed in a pasture.

An aerial topdressing operation was being undertaken from a sloping airstrip located on a headland near Matakana. The fertilizer to be applied was granulated superphosphate totaling 60 tonnes. The aircraft arrived at the airstrip and while waiting for the loader to arrive the pilot walked the length of the runway, then requested that the farmer cut down some saplings at the end of the strip that might obstruct his climb out path. Upon arrival of the loader the pilot instructed the driver to place 18 hundredweight (cwt) or 915 kgs of fertilizer in the aircraft. This was done, along with the addition of some fuel, and the first flight of the operation commenced. The driver did not observe the take off but while reloading his vehicle at the bin noticed a cloud of fertilizer dust off the end of the strip, indicating that the pilot had jettisoned the load. A few minutes later the driver sighted the aircraft briefly through a gap in the trees. It was flying, apparently normally, at about sowing height and on a reciprocal course to the take off direction. A faint trail of fertilizer was coming from the hopper. The plane then disappeared behind some trees and the driver did not see it again. Just after losing sight of the aircraft he saw what seemed to be a piece of red paper fluttering to the ground. When the aircraft failed to land a search was made and the wreckage of ZK-CBI was found in dense scrub about 350 metres to the left of the departure end of the airstrip. The pilot, sole on board, was killed. The investigator found that the pilot had initiated jettisoning the load 36 metres before the boundary fence. It was not clear whether the plane was still on the ground or was airborne at a low speed when a collision with the concrete post and wire fence occurred. Two posts had almost completely severed both halves of the " all flying " tailplane or stabilator. The outboard left hand section was retained by the trim tab only. The outboard part of the right hand side of the stabilator later detached and was found 150 metres from the crash site. With this degree of damage to the tailplane horizontal control must have been difficult, but the pilot was able to clear a low ridge ahead and fly out over a large basin where a 180 degree turn was completed in order to land back on the airstrip. Before the approach could be completed however, the outer part of the RH side of the stabilator separated and the aircraft dived steeply to the ground. The aircraft was destroyed by the severe impact. Fire did not break out. This was not a survivable crash.

Crashed shortly after takeoff from Tambov Airport. The aircraft was destroyed and both pilots were seriously injured.

ZK-DZA was engaged in an aerial topdressing operation at Orari Gorge Station, situated about 16 km north-northwest of the small town of Geraldine in Canterbury. The day's work had commenced at 08:12 and by 16:30 100 tonnes of superphosphate fertilizer had been distributed over the farm in about 100 sorties. These operations had been uneventful apart from two instances of the engine stopping while idling on the ground. One of these events occurred at the start up after the lunch break and the other was after the halt taken at about 16:30 to enable the attachment of a Transland spreader unit to the plane. The pilot was unconcerned at these unwanted stoppages as the engine had a tendency to do this in warm ambient temperatures, and he attributed it to " vapour lock ". At about 16:55 the pilot took off again to spread a mixture of 575 kg of selenium pellets and between 100 and 150 kg of superphosphate over a higher area of the farm. The aircraft weight and CG were within the permitted limits. About five minutes later the loader driver heard " a thump " and on looking around sighted the plane on the side of a hill about one kilometer northwest of his location. The driver immediately radioed base to get them to inform the station manager that a crash had occurred. There was one eyewitness to the accident. A farmer working about 4 km away saw the Fletcher flying away from him and dropping a short trail of fertilizer before making " a funny move sideways " and then coming to a stop on the ground. He immediately returned to his house and telephoned Orari Gorge Station to raise the alarm. Station personnel arrived at the crash scene by 4WD vehicle within ten or fifteen minutes. They found the aircraft wrecked and the pilot dead. Fire had not occurred. The crash site was on a steep grassy slope 1,700 feet amsl. The aircraft had contacted the ground in roughly a landing attitude, at high rate of sink, and drifting to the left. It was severely damaged, with the main undercarriage legs separated and the nose leg folded back under the fuselage. The engine was displaced and the spreader torn off. Of the rest of the airframe only the tail section remained intact. Deceleration was rapid.The ground slide covered a distance of sixteen metres. This was not a survivable accident.