FTW96LA357 · Mooney M20J
Mooney M20J · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Lubbock Preston Smith International Airport (LBB) to Las Cruces International Airport (LRU)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW96LA357
- 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 M20J
- 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
- N4538H
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Lubbock Preston Smith International Airport (LBB), TXTo Las Cruces International Airport (LRU), Las Cruces, NM
- 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 · climb to 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 (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
- Ignition system, magneto › Disengaged
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, installation, inadequate
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Lubbock, TX, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
During a climb to cruise, between 5,000 and 6,000 feet msl, on an IFR flight in VMC, the pilot 'declared an emergency due to his engine cutting out and he had a little manifold pressure/RPM.' The pilot tried to reach Reese AFB about 3 to 4 miles away; however, the airplane landed short of the airport in a cotton field. During the landing roll, the right main gear collapsed, and the right wing separated from the airframe at the forward attachment point. During a postaccident examination, an FAA inspector found that both of the magneto retention nuts that held the single drive magneto to the engine had loosened, and the magneto became disengaged from its drive gear. Maintenance records revealed that the magneto was overhauled and reinstalled during an engine overhaul on April 12, 1996. The airplane had flown 120 hours since the installation. According to the FAA inspector, the 'magneto was installed with the correct hardware.'
Probable cause
inadequate maintenance by maintenance personnel, which resulted in a total loss of engine power when the magneto disengaged from the engine. A related factor was the lack of suitable terrain for a forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW96LA357
- Event ID
- 20001208X06509
- Case number
- FTW96LA357
- 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: cb6a2b9c06c37cabaa8d6f824a7fa02ff008ada6485bab80169f3ec34fcb4142; retrieved 2026-09-21T21:36:13.793Z.