NYC93LA180 · Mooney M20J
Mooney M20J · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Whalen Heliport (OH30) to Kelleys Island Land Field (89D)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's aircraft involved. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC93LA180
- 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 Possible conflict
- 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
- N202WB
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Whalen Heliport (OH30), PUT IN BAY, OHTo Kelleys Island Land Field (89D)
- 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 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
- 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
- Stall/spin
- 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 › Airspeed, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT AND FOUR PASSENGERS, WHICH INCLUDED ONE INFANT, WERE TURNING FROM LEFT BASE TO FINAL, IN THE SINGLE ENGINE AIRPLANE, AT THEIR DESTINATION AIRPORT. THE LANDING RUNWAY WAS 09 AND THE WINDS WERE FROM 020 DEGREES AT 9 MILES PER HOUR (MPH). WITNESSES OBSERVED THE AIRPLANE FLY THROUGH THE FINAL APPROACH COURSE AND INCREASE ITS ANGLE OF BANK TO REALIGN WITH THE RUNWAY. THE AIRPLANE WAS THEN OBSERVED WITH THE NOSE RISING SLIGHTLY FOLLOWED BY AN INCREASED ROLLRATE TO THE LEFT WHILE DESCENDING. AN INCREASE IN PROPELLER SPEED WAS HEARD JUST PRIOR TO THE INCREASED LEFT ROLL. THE AIRPLANE STRUCK THE GROUND, SLID ACROSS A RAMP INTO TWO PARKED AIRPLANES. ACCORDING TO THE PILOT OPERATING HANDBOOK (POH) THE RECOMMENDED FINAL APPROACH SPEED IS 80 MPH. THE PUBLISHED STALL SPEED FOR THAT CONDITION IS 64 MPH. IT ALSO LIST THE STALL SPEED FOR A 40 DEGREE BANK ANGLE AS 76 MPH AND A STALL SPEED OF 93 MPH FOR A 60 DEGREE BANK ANGLE.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain adequate airspeed which resulted in an inadvertent stall. A factor was the pilot's inadequate handling of the airplane.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC93LA180
- Event ID
- 20001211X13252
- Case number
- NYC93LA180
- 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: 53078b3ab0b4b17a031dc2d6197c9a3f2de66252fc0efe38fd08fd30b38cb059; retrieved 2026-09-23T01:41:49.979Z.