BFO94FA008 · Mooney MO-20J
Mooney MO-20J · Accident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From Oakland County International Airport (PTK) to Rhode Island T. F. Green International Airport (PVD)
Event
- NTSB case
- BFO94FA008
- 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
- 2 · 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 MO-20J
- Aircraft type
- Mooney MO-20
- 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
- N4224H
- Operator
- Sherman, Lee A. · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Oakland County International Airport (PTK), OAKLAND PONTIAC, MITo Rhode Island T. F. Green International Airport (PVD), Providence, RI
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Aircraft control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, inadequate
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Seekonk, MA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
DURING A FOUR HOUR IFR CROSS COUNTRY FLIGHT, IN CRUISE, THE ENGINE'S DRY AIR VACUUM PUMP FAILED. THE PILOT ELECTED TO CONTINUE TO HIS FINAL DESTINATION, ABOUT 180 MILES AWAY, NAVIGATING BY HIS LORAN. THE PILOT WAS NOTIFIED BY AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL PERSONNEL THAT IN ORDER TO CONTINUE TO HIS DESTINATION, IMC COULD NOT BE AVOIDED. THE PILOT STATED THAT IMC WAS NOT A PROBLEM AND HE CONTINUED THE FLIGHT. DURING A NO GYRO VECTOR APPROACH TO THE LOCALIZER IN IMC, AT AN ALTITUDE OF ABOUT 1,900 FEET MSL, THE PILOT BECAME SPATIALLY DISORIENTED AND LOST CONTROL OF THE AIRPLANE. THE AIRPLANE IMPACTED THE TERRAIN AND THE PILOT AND PASSENGER WERE FATALLY INJURED. THE DRY AIR VACUUM PUMP WAS EXAMINED. THE EXAMINATION REVEALED THAT THE INPUT SHAFT OF THE PUMP WAS FACTURED PRIOR TO IMPACT.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S INADEQUATE IN FLIGHT PLANNING/DECISION TO CONTINUE FLIGHT INTO KNOWN ADVERSE WEATHER CONDITIONS AFTER THE ENGINE'S DRY AIR VACUUM PUMP FAILED AND THE PILOT'S FAILURE TO MAINTAIN AIRPLANE CONTROL DURING APPROACH. A FACTOR IN THE ACCIDENT WAS THE DRY AIR VACUUM PUMP FAILURE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record BFO94FA008
- Event ID
- 20001211X13691
- Case number
- BFO94FA008
- 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: 7d3f40a9a7a6da1548416ddd7fc7c72ab11272c89f561db8cabcf0817702c4da; retrieved 2026-09-21T00:19:14.443Z.