MIA98LA033 · Mooney M20C
Mooney M20C · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Crossville Memorial Airport Whitson Field (CSV) to Pine Bluff Regional Airport, Grider Field (PBF)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA98LA033
- 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
- Instrument 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
- N78952
- Operator
- John W. Mcdonald · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Crossville Memorial Airport Whitson Field (CSV), Crossville, TNTo Pine Bluff Regional Airport, Grider Field (PBF), Pine Bluff, 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
- 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
- Visual flight rules (VFR) flight into instrument meteorological conditions (IMC); 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Altitude, not maintained
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Preflight planning/preparation, poor
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was briefed earlier in the day that VFR flight was not recommended due in part to mountain obscurement and also due to the freezing level. The flight departed then remained in the traffic pattern and landed due to rain. The flight remained on the ground about 2 hours and while waiting, the pilot was advised by the airport manager how to fly out of the mountains by following a road westbound while flying at 2,300 feet (500-600 feet agl). According to the passenger, the flight departed using that instruction and after being airborne about 10 minutes, the flight entered a fog bank or cloud. The pilot then began banking to the left and during the turn, the passenger noted that the altimeter indicated 2,100 feet. While descending the airplane collided with a tree then the ground. Examination of the airplane by an FAA airworthiness inspector revealed no evidence of flight control preimpact failure or malfunction. Examination of the engine revealed no evidence of mechanical failure or malfunction. The pilot was not instrument rated but had accumulated about 43 hours simulated instrument time. According to his flight instructor, the pilot had a tendency to lose altitude during turns while wearing a vision restricting hood which simulated instrument conditions. The instructor also stated that the accident pilot would lose concentration and would be easily overloaded during simulated instrument flight. The passenger stated that both were tired, and the pilot wanted to get home and off the mountain.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate preflight and inflight decision and his inadvertent VFR flight into instrument meteorological conditions. Contributing factors are self induced pressure, mountainous terrain, and low clouds.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA98LA033
- Event ID
- 20001208X09229
- Case number
- MIA98LA033
- 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: 963c54fe20660e21825abae839d4ed62c02020117a2d3122de7fe52844bf5ff6; retrieved 2026-09-20T22:45:37.869Z.