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Atlas / NTSB / WPR22LA293

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event WPR22LA293

2022-08-07 Circle, Montana, United States None 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Registry · N36542

FAA Aircraft Registry record.

Make / Model

AIR TRACTOR INC AT-301

Year of manufacture

1980 · 42 years old at event

Engine

P&W R1340 SERIES (600 hp)

Seats / Engines

1 seats · 1 engine

Last airworthiness date

19801103

ADS-B equipped

Yes — Mode-S A421DE

Registrant of record

HARRIS SPRAYING INC

Source: FAA Aircraft Registry (releasable master file).

Aircraft involved

Probable cause & findings

The loss of engine power due to carburetor ice. Contributing to the accident was the pilot’s failure to use carburetor heat.

Factual narrative

The pilot reported that, following an aerial application on field, he was returning to a private [air]strip, when the engine began to run rough and lost power at an altitude of about 100 ft above ground level. The pilot initiated a forced landing to a wheat field, however, the airplane impacted terrain about 75 ft short of the field, which resulted in substantial damage to the fuselage. The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation. The pilot added that carburetor ice “was not even considered at the time of power loss” and that the conditions favorable to carburetor ice were not taken into account. Carburetor heat was not used. Weather conditions reported at the time of the accident were conducive for serious carburetor icing at cruise power. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database Retrieved: 2026-02-12

NTSB Findings

Hierarchical cause / factor breakdown from the FAA bulk avdata database. Each finding tagged C (Cause) or F (Factor).

  • Aircraft-Aircraft power plant-Engine fuel and control-Fuel control/carburetor-Not specified
  • Environmental issues-Conditions/weather/phenomena-Temp/humidity/pressure-Conducive to carburetor icing-Contributed to outcome
  • Personnel issues-Action/decision-Action-Lack of action-Pilot

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_2022_WPR22LA293.txt. Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb. Full investigation docket on data.ntsb.gov ↗.

Related research

What the literature says.

Academic papers and agency reports matching this event's aircraft type or causal vocabulary (icing). Sourced from NASA NTRS, NTSB Safety Studies, FAA CAMI, AOPA Air Safety Institute, Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons, arXiv, and the Semantic Scholar academic graph.

Browse the full corpus — academia portal ↗