Recent aerial applicator crashes draw attention to safety

Summer skies fill with planes and helicopters in rural Illinois every summer as corn and soybean fields need crop protection. However, the risk to aerial applicators was magnified last month with four crashes within eight days in Illinois.

An applicator plane crashed near the Ogle County Airport in Mount Morris along Illinois Route 64 in mid-July. The 23-year-old pilot, who was the sole occupant of the plane, died.

Elsewhere, no one was injured when a plane crashed near Hartsburg on Route 121 close to the Logan County Airport. Minor injuries were reported in a plane crash in Wyoming, and no injuries resulted from a helicopter accident near Bloomington, according to the National Traffic Safety Board (NTSB).

Every year, there is a crucial time in June and July when planes and helicopters weave low above the fields.

“There’s a lot of acres that must be sprayed very quickly. So that’s when we have accidents,” said Dennis Bowman, digital agriculture specialist with the University of Illinois Extension.

“With the windmill and cellphone towers, we have made the environment more dangerous,” he told FarmWeek.

For corn, most of the products are applied shortly after tasseling time. The soybean season is a little longer. So, July and early August are prime time.

“Already facing razor-thin margins due to low crop prices and high input and land costs, farmers strive to set their crop up for success and reduce the negative impacts from stressors like weather and pests,” said Kathryn Seebruck, commercial agriculture educator, U of I Extension.

This might include aerial application of crop protection products such as fungicides and insecticides to prevent diseases and insects, respectively, from damaging the crop during this sensitive period, she said.

One advantage of helicopters over planes is that some can land on a platform on the back of a truck and take off again. The ability to hover and land in small areas is an advantage. However, statistics show fatalities are a mix of both helicopters and airplanes, Bowman said.

So far in 2025 in the U.S., there have been four aerial application fatalities, two with planes and two with helicopters. In Illinois, five aerial ag application accidents have been reported this year; three airplanes, one helicopter and a drone.

“Pilots are skilled, but they have to be alert every second,” Bowman said. “Pilots need to take time, not be fatigued, and not let concentration slip.”

Meanwhile, farmers need chemicals applied quickly in a small, specific window.

“The key thing for farmers is to be patient with the pilots,” Bowman said of farmers’ role in safety.

For years, planes and helicopters ruled the skies over Illinois farmland, carrying out these tasks. Drones in ag were initially used for mapping and scouting. But the vehicles started taking off about three years ago when the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) changed its rules to make it easier to apply products using drones.

“I got mine three years ago, when it was fairly rare, but they started showing up. Last year, the number of drones really increased, and we started to see them on a major commercial basis. It continues to grow,” Bowman said.

Spray drones were designed specifically for agricultural applications, and their size increased so they can cover more area.

As far as safety is concerned, drones stay in the field boundaries and don’t need to zoom up and around for the next pass. If something does go wrong, there’s no pilot on board. Spray drones also minimize the risks associated with carrying large volumes of hazardous materials and aviation fuel, as they typically carry much smaller payloads, Bowman said.

While drones offer a higher degree of safety, manned crop dusters still have several key advantages, especially for large-scale agricultural operations. Manned aircraft can carry much larger payloads and cover hundreds to thousands of acres per day at significantly faster speeds, making them more efficient.

Their longer operating times also make them well-suited for continuous, high-output applications. Although drones are advancing quickly, their limited battery life, smaller coverage capacity, and regulatory restrictions currently make them less cost-effective for large operations.

“As technology and regulations evolve, swarms of drones working in coordination will likely overcome many of today’s limitations,” Bowman said.

“One of the paramount advantages of advancing agricultural technology like drones is that they make ag work easier and, more importantly, safer. As their benefits are realized, they may just become as much of a familiar sight in the summer as crop dusting airplanes and helicopters,” he added.

• This story was distributed through a cooperative project between Illinois Farm Bureau and the Illinois Press Association. For more food and farming news, visit FarmWeekNow.com.