IAD97LA031 · Mooney M20F
Mooney M20F · Accident: in flight collision with object on approach
From Erie International Tom Ridge Field (ERI) to Wellsville Municipal Airport - Tarantine Field (ELZ)
Event
- NTSB case
- IAD97LA031
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Mooney M20F
- 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
- N3424N
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Erie International Tom Ridge Field (ERI), Erie, PATo Wellsville Municipal Airport - Tarantine Field (ELZ)
- 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 · IFR final 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
- In flight collision with object
- 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 › Minimum descent altitude, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Instrument meteorological conditions prevailed at the destination. After picking up another passenger and refueling, the pilot departed for their destination. The surviving passenger stated that the pilot was utilizing his Global Positioning System (GPS) en route to help track their route to their destination. The destination airport was equipped with a Localizer approach to the runway. The passenger reported that there was no indication from the pilot that anything was wrong with the airplane, the engine sounded good and there was no ice on the airplane. As they approached the airport, the surviving passenger heard the pilot state, 'I can see the ground' and the pilot gave the thumbs up signal. This statement was followed by the front right seat passenger exclaiming, 'Look out for the trees, pull up, pull up!' There was no power application and shortly afterwards the airplane collided with the trees.
Probable cause
Descent below the published minimum descent altitude followed by collision with the surrounding terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record IAD97LA031
- Event ID
- 20001208X07176
- Case number
- IAD97LA031
- 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: f493618181c30a0640aa26392c79a2c4ddae1808ecfca675f0d6421d506deb46; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:05:15.284Z.