FTW97FA032 · Mooney M20J
Ellington Field Aero Club Mooney M20J · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Ellington Airport (EFD) to Scholes International At Galveston Airport (GLS)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's departure or destination. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW97FA032
- 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
- 1 · 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
- N25LS
- Operator
- Ellington Field Aero Club
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route Possible conflict
- From Ellington Airport (EFD), Houston, TXTo Scholes International At Galveston Airport (GLS), Galveston, TX
- 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
- Maneuvering
- 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 control in flight
- 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
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Stall/spin, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
A witness observed the airplane in a 3 to 4 turn (360 degree) spin to the right with the engine pointing downward before the airplane impacted the water and a fire erupted. The pilot received a 2.1 hour check out including stalls. He wanted to fly the airplane solo before beginning his commercial pilot training and rented the airplane for the local flight. Numerous entries for stalls were entered in the pilot's logbook; however, there were no entries for spin training (not required by FAR's). The pilot logged 6.4 hours of simulated instrument flight and 0.8 hour in actual instrument conditions during the 90 days prior to the accident. Radar summary charts indicated precipitation intensity levels throughout the area with tops to 30,600 feet. Weather stations reported wind gusts to 25 knots. Cumulus and towering cumulus clouds with multiple cloud layers associated with a front prevailed throughout the area. Convective sigmet and Airmets were in effect for thunderstorm activity, IFR ceilings and visibility. VFR flight was not recommended away from the local airport. There was no evidence of an inflight fire. Examination of the airplane did not reveal any pre-impact discrepancies.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadvertent stall and spin of the airplane. Factors were the pilot's lack of total experience in the make and model of airplane and the weather conditions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW97FA032
- Event ID
- 20001208X07018
- Case number
- FTW97FA032
- 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: a110149370b41a5f4e5931da5a1c99a5fb79355bbe7c8c9acdfd28f776066c10; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:08:41.723Z.