NYC98FA095 · Mooney M20J
Mooney M20J · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Newport News Williamsburg International Airport (PHF) to Republic Airport (FRG)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC98FA095
- 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 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
- N40HL
- Operator
- Charles T Gunzburg · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Newport News Williamsburg International Airport (PHF), Newport News, VATo Republic Airport (FRG), Farmingdale, NY
- 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 missed 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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 › Aircraft control, not maintained
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Bridgeport, CT, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
The pilot departed Florida and made a fuel stop in Virginia. Later during a night precision instrument approach under instrument meteorological conditions (IMC) to Farmingdale, New York, the airplane struck trees. The pilot executed a missed approach that did not comply with published procedures, and was then offered several alternate airports, some under visual meteorological conditions. The pilot chose a divert airport which was IMC, and for which he did not have the precision approach charts. The approach information was provided by air traffic control. During the approach, the pilot was advised by the tower controller that his landing lights could be seen over the approach end of the runway as the airplane was 'going back into the clouds.' The airplane was next observed well left of the runway. The pilot was asked his altitude and he responded '300 feet.' The tower controller gave the pilot a vector and told him to contact approach control, and the airplane disappeared into the clouds again. The airplane then exited the base of the clouds in a right descending turn and struck the ground. Weather conditions immediately before and after the accident at Bridgeport were reported in part as 400 foot overcast, rain and visibility of 2 to 3 miles. Radar data revealed erratic altitudes on the glideslope and during vectors. The accident airport did not have an approach lighting system to the precision approach runway. In January 1995, the Safety Board issued a recommendation to install an approach lighting system to that runway 'as soon as possible.'
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain control of the airplane during night instrument meteorological conditions. Contributing factors were dark night conditions, low ceilings, rain, and his decision to divert to an airport under instrument meteorological conditions when visual meteorological conditions existed at other airports.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC98FA095
- Event ID
- 20001211X09936
- Case number
- NYC98FA095
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1998-04-20.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 955477dca04f44dd1379fb9204bb1a39e1df6791893a3c231f85be0c65109f48; retrieved 2026-09-20T22:37:11.991Z.