CHI95LA058 · Mooney M20K
Mooney M20K · Accident: partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure) during initial climb
From Crystal Airport (MIC) to Chicago Rockford International Airport (RFD)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI95LA058
- 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
- 0 · 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 M20K
- 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
- N3983H
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Crystal Airport (MIC)To Chicago Rockford International Airport (RFD), Rockford, IL
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure)
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Distance/speed, misjudged
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT STATED THAT AFTER TAKEOFF AT AN ALTITUDE OF 200 FEET AGL, THE ENGINE BEGAN RUNNING ROUGH AND LOST POWER. HE DECLARED AN EMERGENCY AND WAS INITIALLY CLEARED TO LAND ON RUNWAY 23R FOLLOWED BY A CLEARANCE TO LAND ON ANY RUNWAY. HE STATED HE DID NOT INITIALLY UNDERSTAND THAT HE WAS CLEARED FOR ANY RUNWAY SO HE SET UP TO LAND ON RUNWAY 23R. HE STATED HE WAS TOO CLOSE TO THE RUNWAY BUT HE CONTINUED THE LANDING. THE AIRPLANE TRAVELED OFF THE END OF THE RUNWAY AND CAME TO A STOP AFTER CONTACTING AN AIRPORT PERIMETER FENCE. A POST ACCIDENT TEST RUN OF THE ENGINE REVEALED IT PRODUCED POWER TO 2700 RPM. THE ONLY ANOMALY FOUND WAS A SEPARATION OF THE #6 CYLINDER EXHAUST PIPE NEAR ITS ENGINE MOUNTING FLANGE.
Probable cause
the pilot's misjudging of distance and airspeed during the approach to landing which resulted in an overrun. Factors associated with the accident were the separation of the exhaust pipe and the pilot's not understanding communications from the air traffic control tower.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI95LA058
- Event ID
- 20001206X02702
- Case number
- CHI95LA058
- 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: e7aeda636811910990dd1819e282078001cc49486744eb6ad51074524bfa5c42; retrieved 2026-09-23T00:21:37.401Z.