NYC93LA108 · Mooney M20J
Mooney M20J · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Tweed New Haven Airport (HVN) to Tweed New Haven Airport (HVN)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC93LA108
- 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 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
- N1157B
- Operator
- David B. Wakefield · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Tweed New Haven Airport (HVN)To Tweed New Haven Airport (HVN)
- 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 turn to base
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Aircraft control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Spatial disorientation
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of New Haven, CT, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT COMPLETED A TOUCH-AND-GO ON RWY 20 FROM A SIMULATED ENGINE-OUT APPROACH, AND ON UPWIND REQUESTED A SHORT APPROACH TO RWY 32. THE TOWER CLEARED THE FLIGHT TO LAND ON RWY 32, AND WAS LAST OBSERVED STARTING A LEFT CROSSWIND. THE AIRPLANE IMPACTED BRUSH AND CARTWHEELED ACROSS A ROAD, LEAVING PROPELLER STRIKE MARKS ON THE ROAD. ONE PROP BLADE WAS FOUND BENT FORWARD; THE OTHER BLADE TIP WAS SEVERED - THE SEVERED END HAD SIGNS OF DEFORMATION & BENDING MOMENTS FORWARD ACROSS THE CORD OF THE BLADE. THE ENGINE WAS EXAMINED AND NO ANOMALIES WERE FOUND. DEPARTURE OFF RWY 20, WITH A LEFT TURN TOWARD RWY 32, PROVIDES A PILOT WITH A VIEW OF LONG ISLAND SOUND AND THE LIGHTS FROM THE SHORE OF LONG ISLAND LESS THAN 20 MI AWAY. THERE WAS NO VASI OR REIL FOR RWY 32.
Probable cause
THE LOSS OF AIRPLANE CONTROL AS A RESULT OF THE PILOT ENCOUNTERING SPATIAL DISORIENTATION. FACTORS IN THIS ACCIDENT WERE THE LOW AMBIENT LIGHT CONDITIONS AND THE LACK OF RUNWAY END IDENTIFIER LIGHTS
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC93LA108
- Event ID
- 20001211X12694
- Case number
- NYC93LA108
- 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 1993-06-09.
- API snapshot SHA-256: b880e5c618ae7394107897057cfa1e21df4c9dbf70818692757e38578cf33072; retrieved 2026-09-21T14:23:15.063Z.