Piper PA-36-375 N3859E

Summary

On 19 June 2008 at about 13:40 local time, a Piper PA-36-375 registered N3859E, operated by H and R Aerial Enterprises Inc, was involved in an accident near Lodi, California, United States. One person was on board and one had minor injuries. The aircraft was substantially damaged. The NTSB has published a probable cause for this accident; it is quoted in full below.

Date

19 June 2008 at 13:40

Classification

Accident

Location

Lodi, California, United States

Nearest airport

Kingdon Airpark (O20)

Coordinates

38.0883, -121.3556

Aircraft

Piper PA-36-375

Registration

N3859E

Category

Airplane

Engines

1

Operator

H and R Aerial Enterprises Inc

Operating rule

Part 137: Agricultural

Purpose of flight

Aerial Application

Phase of flight

Not recorded

Route

Lodi → Unknown

Aircraft damage

Substantial

Weather

VMC

Light

Dawn

NTSB number

LAX08CA188

1 person had minor injuries.

The pilot's inadequate in-flight decision to continue the flight into an area of obscured visibility and his failure to maintain clearance above obstacles.

Quoted verbatim from the NTSB record. This site does not paraphrase or interpret it.

Read the full NTSB narrative

The pilot was flying low over a grape vineyard to apply sulfur dust to the crop. He had made two application runs with no problems encountered. As he set up for the third run, he observed that the sulfur applied on the previous two runs had aggregated into a cloud and had drifted through the area in which he would be flying. He decided to continue the application run, and lost all visual contact with the ground as the airplane flew into the sulfur dust cloud. The left wing hit a grape trellis, which pulled the airplane down and to the left. The airplane traveled 150 yards on top of the grape trellises before stopping inverted on the ground. The pilot reported no mechanical failures or malfunctions with the airplane during the flight.

Quoted verbatim from the NTSB record.