FTW97LA358 · Mooney M20C
Mooney M20C · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Aero Valley Airport (52F) to Gastons Airport (3M0)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW97LA358
- 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 M20C
- 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
- N7045V
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Aero Valley Airport (52F), Roanoke, TXTo Gastons Airport (3M0), Lakeview, AR
- 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 · 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
- In flight encounter with weather
- 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 › In-flight planning/decision, improper
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Pettigrew, AR, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that while on a VFR cross country flight, the weather deteriorated to broken to overcast ceilings. The pilot stated that he noticed the vacuum pressure in the instrument pressure gauge dropped below the normal operating range and both gyros started to fail. About 10 minutes later the pressure went to zero resulting in the loss of the artificial horizon, directional gyro and the wing leveler system. The pilot stated that after losing the gyros, he elected to proceed towards the nearest airport (Huntsville), using VOR for navigation. The weather continued to deteriorate and he elected to descend in order to remain VFR. The airplane descended below the minimum reception altitude for the VOR, resulting in the loss of VOR and DME. The pilot elected to execute a precautionary landing in an open pasture. The pilot told the IIC that the field selected looked level from the air; however, during the landing roll he found that the field had a couple of rises in it which minimized the effectiveness of the wheel brakes resulting in the airplane skidding into a fence post.
Probable cause
The pilot's improper in-flight decision. Factors were the prevailing low ceilings, the inaccurate flight and navigation instruments as result of the failure of the engine accessories vacuum pump and the lack of suitable terrain for the pilot to execute the precautionary landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW97LA358
- Event ID
- 20001208X08853
- Case number
- FTW97LA358
- 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: 2073ef0f4cba40a9f46408f53632a25603400171d439efcb54d949605cdf96cb; retrieved 2026-09-22T18:35:10.228Z.