ATL97LA005 · Mooney M-20F
Mooney M-20F · Accident: loss of engine power on approach
From Peachtree City Falcon Field (FFC) to 6A2
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL97LA005
- 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 M-20F
- Aircraft type
- Mooney M-20
- 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
- N6434Q
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Peachtree City Falcon Field (FFC), Peachtree City, GATo 6A2
- 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
- Approach
- 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
- Loss of engine power
- 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 starvation
- 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
- Fluid, fuel › Starvation
- Fuel system › Contamination
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Ten minutes into the flight, and while on a visual approach for a full stop landing, the pilot reported that the engine developed a rough running condition. The procedures attempted by the pilot to restore flight sustaining engine power, failed. The pilot selected a forced landing area. During the landing roll, the airplane collided with a fence, and came to rest adjacent to a state road. Fuel samples were collected from both main fuel tanks and the fuel selector at the accident site. An additional fuel sample was collected from the fuel tanker at the departure airport that refueled the airplane. The examination of the fuel samples from both main fuel tanks disclosed an abnormally high level of contamination and an abnormally cloudy visual appearance. The samples contained sand, rust and small pieces of fuel tank sealant. In addition to the debris found in the two main fuel tanks, unidentified organic debris was found in the fuel sample collected at the fuel selector valve. The examination of the fuel injector filter assembly disclosed an abnormally high level of coarse debris contamination. The origin of the debris found in the fuel system was not determined.
Probable cause
Fuel system contamination that resulted in fuel starvation and subsequent loss of engine power. A factor was rough terrain at the emergency landing site.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL97LA005
- Event ID
- 20001208X06836
- Case number
- ATL97LA005
- 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: ad6f168e9e8517baee9943f8c5b957790b9cf79237b64cc3d98d3669e9111623; retrieved 2026-09-21T21:33:51.967Z.