NYC94FA135 · Mooney M20C
Mooney M20C · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Meriden Markham Municipal Airport (MMK) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC94FA135
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Completed
- API-reported fatalities
- 2 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- General aviation
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Mooney M20C
- Aircraft type
- Mooney M20
- Category
- Airplane
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- N6842N
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Meriden Markham Municipal Airport (MMK), Meriden, CTTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 91: General Aviation
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- En route · cruise
- First occurrenceThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Total loss of engine power (non-mechanical)
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Fuel exhaustion; Stall/spin
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Airspeed(vs), not maintained
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, improper
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Wallingford, CT, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT AND PASSENGER HAD CONDUCTED A 30 TO 40 MINUTE LOCAL FLIGHT IN THE PILOT'S AIRPLANE, AND RETURNED TO THE AIRPORT. THE PILOT HAD THE AIRPORT REFUELER PUT 10 GALLONS OF FUEL INTO THE LEFT WING TANK ONLY. THE PILOT TOLD THE REFUELER HE WAS TRYING TO DRY OUT THE RIGHT TANK TO PERFORM MAINTENANCE ON IT. THE PILOT AND PASSENGER THEN DEPARTED IN THE AIRPLANE FOR ANOTHER FLIGHT. SEVERAL MINUTES AFTER TAKEOFF, THE AIRPLANE WAS OBSERVED INBOUND TO THE AIRPORT AT A LOW ALTITUDE, FLYING OVER PROPERTY OWNED BY THE PILOT. THE ENGINE WAS HEARD TO COUGH AND THEN STOP. THE AIRPLANE THEN PERFORMED A LEFT 180 DEGREE TURN AND NOSED INTO THE GROUND. THE AIRPLANE IMPACTED IN A OPEN FIELD OWNED BY THE PILOT. EXAMINATION REVEALED THE FUEL TANKS WERE RUPTURED ON IMPACT, AND THE FUEL SELECTOR WAS SET TO THE LEFT TANK. NO ENGINE OR AIRFRAME ANOMALIES WERE NOTED. THE ENGINE WAS NOT EQUIPPED WITH A FUEL PRIMER SYSTEM.
Probable cause
the pilot's decision to exhaust the fuel supply in the selected tank in-flight, and his failure to maintain the minimum stall speed during engine out conditions. This resulted in a complete loss of engine power and the inadvertent stall and impact with the ground. A factor in this accident was the inadequate altitude in which the pilot exhausted the fuel.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC94FA135
- Event ID
- 20001206X01824
- Case number
- NYC94FA135
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (4)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 25803ef2b3750f3e257dbd962fff9482eb3c426c91c149128d5ebd6b1843c8fc; retrieved 2026-09-21T00:03:56.278Z.