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Atlas / NTSB / WPR23LA333

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event WPR23LA333

2023-08-31 Three Rocks, California, United States Airport · N/A None 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Registry · N61373

FAA Aircraft Registry record.

Make / Model

AYRES CORPORATION S2R-T34

Year of manufacture

1996 · 27 years old at event

Engine

P&W PT6A SER (750 hp)

Seats / Engines

1 seats · 1 engine

Last airworthiness date

19960531

ADS-B equipped

Yes — Mode-S A7FD4C

Registrant of record

H & G FARMS INC

Source: FAA Aircraft Registry (releasable master file).

Aircraft involved

Probable cause & findings

The airplane’s exceedance of the critical angle of attack, resulting in an aerodynamic stall and impact with terrain.

Factual narrative

The pilot reported that the airplane’s hopper had been loaded with 300 gallons of water. During the takeoff roll, the airplane did not accelerate as expected so he initiated the emergency dump procedure to jettison the water. The airplane became airborne and the pilot maintained a high angle of attack to climb over trees near the end of the runway. The airplane subsequently experienced an aerodynamic stall, descended into an adjacent field, and impacted terrain. The left wing, right aileron, and elevator sustained substantial damage. The pilot said he suspected the airplane performance was affected by density altitude and he reported that there were no preaccident mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation. 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 oper/perf/capability-Performance/control parameters-Airspeed-Not attained/maintained
  • Aircraft-Aircraft oper/perf/capability-Performance/control parameters-Angle of attack-Capability exceeded
  • Personnel issues-Task performance-Use of equip/info-Aircraft control-Pilot
  • Personnel issues-Psychological-Attention/monitoring-Monitoring equip/instruments-Pilot

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_2023_WPR23LA333.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 (stall). 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 ↗