ATL92LA144 · Mooney M20G
Mooney M20G · Accident: in flight collision with object during landing
From Savannah Hilton Head International Airport (SAV) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL92LA144
- 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 M20G
- 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
- N6785N
- Operator
- Spencer, Robert M. · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Savannah Hilton Head International Airport (SAV), Savannah, GATo not recorded
- 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
- Landing · aborted
- 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 collision with object
- 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
- 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 › Aborted landing, delayed
- Pilot in command › Recovery from bounced landing, delayed
- Pilot in command › Stall, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE AIRPLANE LANDED, NOSE WHEEL FIRST, AT AN EXCESSIVE LANDING SPEED AND PORPOISED SEVERAL TIMES. A WITNESS STATED THAT WHEN THE AIRPLANE WAS ABOUT 500 FEET FROM THE END OF THE RUNWAY, THE LANDING WAS ABORTED. HIGH TREES BOUNDED THE DEPARTURE END OF THE RUNWAY. ACCORDING TO THE WITNESS THE AIRPLANE WAS UNABLE TO CLIMB OVER THE TREES AND STALLED. IT THEN COLLIDED WITH THE TREES & THE GROUND, WITH THE ENGINE AT 'FULL POWER.' THE AIRPLANE WAS FOUND IN A VERTICAL NOSE DOWN ATTITUDE. IT WAS SUPPORTED IN THAT POSITION BY THE THICK WOODS. THE PILOT SAID THAT THE ENGINE ACCELERATED WITHOUT HIS INPUT & THAT THE PROP GOVERNOR CABLE WAS FOUND BROKEN AT THE CONTROL PANEL END. THE PROP GOVERNOR ARM WAS FOUND IN THE FULL INCREASE POSITION. ADDITIONALLY, THE DENSITY ALTITUDE WAS CALCULATED TO BE 3500 FEET MSL.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S DELAY IN EXECUTING A RECOVERY FROM THE BOUNCED LANDING AND HIS INADVERTENT STALL DURING THE INITIAL CLIMB AFTER AND LANDING WAS ABORTED. FACTORS WERE THE EXCESSIVE LANDING SPEED AND THE HIGH DENSITY ALTITUDE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL92LA144
- Event ID
- 20001211X15047
- Case number
- ATL92LA144
- 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: 2e9d1e8275d05c210f0bf93c07c38f56d90e2a187b3948f4ea114807cf326475; retrieved 2026-09-23T02:55:04.291Z.