Incident Details
During an aerial application flight, the main landing gear of an agricultural airplane contacted a rice field, causing the wheels to bog down. The aircraft subsequently nosed over and came to rest in an inverted position. The commercial pilot was spraying the field in an east-west direction.
According to the operator, the field being sprayed was bordered on the south by a highway that, due to a construction detour, was heavily traveled by trucks. The wind on the morning of the accident was from the northeast. The operator stated that the pilot was trying to avoid overspraying the vehicles on the highway, and his attention was momentarily diverted from maintaining clearance from the field being sprayed.
Pilot Information
The pilot held a commercial certificate and had accumulated 1,450 total flight hours, of which 925 hours were in the accident airplane. In the preceding 90 days, the pilot had flown 277 hours, with 141 hours within the last 30 days.