Former NAAA President Rick Boardman Killed in Nebraska Ag-Plane Crash

A Piper PA-36-300 Brave (N57846) operated by Boardman Air Services crashed into an unlit rotating beacon tower and terrain near Henderson, Nebraska, on June 11, 2026, fatally injuring the pilot. Rick Boardman, 61, of Henderson, was conducting a Title 14 CFR Part 137 agricultural application flight for mosquito abatement at dusk when the accident occurred at 2103 CDT, the National Transportation Safety Board reported.

Preliminary NTSB data indicate the airplane departed at 2052 and was on a heading of approximately 268° magnetic at about 40 feet above ground level when it struck the 50-foot tower. Security video from a camera southeast of the tower showed the aircraft flying east to west toward the setting sun; the U.S. Naval Observatory calculated the sun was 0.2° above the horizon on an azimuth of 301.6° magnetic at 2100. The airplane came to rest in a bean field roughly 280 feet west of the tower, sustaining substantial damage.

Boardman was a former president of the National Agricultural Aviation Association and a longtime Nebraska aerial application operator. The NTSB investigation is ongoing. The accident underscores the hazards of low-level agricultural flying during twilight, when unlit or unmarked obstacles can be nearly invisible against a bright horizon.