CHI98LA020 · Mooney M20C
Mooney M20C · Accident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From GVW · Kansas City, MO to K02 · Perryville, MO
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI98LA020
- 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
- N9449V
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From GVW · Kansas City, MOTo K02 · Perryville, MO
- 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- 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
- Electrical system, alternator › Failure
- Electrical system, battery › Discharged
- Landing gear, emergency extension assembly › Not engaged
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot said that the airplane had to be 'jump started' at the flight's origination. Shortly after departing, the pilot lost radio communications. Later in the flight, the pilot noted that both fuel gages read empty. The pilot elected to land at a closer airport than his planned destination. Approaching the airport, the pilot attempted to extend the landing gear. Nothing happened. The pilot flew north of the airport and went through the emergency landing gear extension procedure. The pilot returned to the airport and made a low pass over the runway, hoping someone would see him and give him a 'wave off' if the gear was not down. The pilot made another attempt to land, but had to perform a go-around for another airplane in the traffic pattern. On his final landing attempt, the pilot reduced airspeed and established himself on final for a straight-in approach to the runway. The airplane touched down on its 'belly' and slid to a stop on the runway. Examination of the airplane's alternator revealed that the front bearing was broken. Testing of the manual gear extension system revealed that the handcrank would not engage every time the handcrank engage lever was placed in the 'forward' position.
Probable cause
failure of the alternator's front bearing, depletion of battery power, and failure of the emergency landing gear extension handcrank to engage during the pilot's attempt to perform the emergency procedure.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI98LA020
- Event ID
- 20001208X08978
- Case number
- CHI98LA020
- 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: 2e363965164bf6536d46656df8a494b3d135c479aa8e2673ef3dcc7e95e3aed5; retrieved 2026-09-22T18:16:39.025Z.