FTW91FA030 · Mooney 20J
Mooney 20J · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From West Woodward Airport (WWR) to OKC Will Rogers World Airport (OKC)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW91FA030
- 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
- 4 · 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 20J
- Aircraft type
- Mooney 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
- N7201E
- Operator
- James D. Woodward · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From West Woodward Airport (WWR), Woodward, OKTo OKC Will Rogers World Airport (OKC), Oklahoma City, OK
- 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
- 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 · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
DURING A NIGHT BACK COURSE LOCALIZER APPROACH UNDER INSTRUMENT METEOROLOGICAL CONDITIONS, THE INSTRUMENT-RATED PRIVATE PILOT LOST CONTROL OF HIS AIRCRAFT AND IMPACTED INTO A MUDDY WHEAT FIELD. THE PILOT HAD REQUESTED THE APPROACH AFTER ATTEMPTING TO VISUALLY LAND AT THE AIRPORT. THE PILOT WAS VECTORED TO FINAL AND FLEW THROUGH THE LOCALIZER. HE ACKNOWLEDGED THAT HE WAS ON THE CORRECT FREQUENCY. HE WAS OBSERVED TURNING AND FLYING AWAY FROM THE COURSE LINE JUST PRIOR TO THE LOSS OF CONTROL. HE HAD STATED THAT HE WAS BELOW THE CLOUDS PRIOR TO ATTEMPTING THE INSTRUMENT APPROACH.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S FAILURE TO MAINTAIN AIRCRAFT CONTROL. FACTORS WERE SPATIAL DISORIENTATION, IMPROPER IFR PROCEDURES, AND THE DARK NIGHT WITH LOW CEILINGS AND RAIN.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW91FA030
- Event ID
- 20001212X16315
- Case number
- FTW91FA030
- 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 1991-01-15.
- API snapshot SHA-256: a7521bf58620704d85bbb2dccdae89d66143216eb6c39ab22c0074676ac76fe1; retrieved 2026-09-21T02:01:32.665Z.