LAX97FA253 · Mooney M20J
Mooney M20J · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) on approach
From Van Nuys Airport (VNY) to Placerville Airport (PVF)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX97FA253
- 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
- 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
- N405LA
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Van Nuys Airport (VNY), Van Nuys, CATo Placerville Airport (PVF)
- 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 · VFR pattern final
- 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 (non-mechanical)
- 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
- Tree(s)
- 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
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane collided with trees and a residence after a loss of engine power while on final approach to runway 23. The airplane was destroyed by impact forces and postimpact fire, to include all engine accessories, the cockpit, and fuel system. A witness heard the pilot announce that he was on a 2 mile final to runway 23 and no additional transmissions were heard. Other witnesses saw the airplane make a descending, low, sweeping turn to the southwest just above the tree line, in a left wing down attitude just prior to the collision with the trees and residence 1 mile west of the airport. The engine was disassembled and examined with no anomalies noted which would have precluded the engine from producing power. The landing gear was in the down position, and the fuel selector was in the off position. Fuel load and usage was reconstructed based upon the distance between the origin and destination airports. The trip required 15 gallons of fuel. The airplane's last known fueling was on July 17th at the departure airport, when each wing tank was filled with 10 gallons. It is not known how much fuel was present in each tank prior to this fueling. Flight hours subsequent to the July 17th fueling could not be determined. Diphenhydramine, an antihistamine, was detected in the pilot's blood at 0.186 ug/ml, and in the liver at 1.594 ug/ml
Probable cause
A loss of engine power for undetermined reasons.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX97FA253
- Event ID
- 20001208X08412
- Case number
- LAX97FA253
- 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: 62778620501e75cdcc7c3a7f88662daacf79b5935116f7a33d5e53100d1fff40; retrieved 2026-09-20T22:53:52.802Z.