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NYC91LA100 · Mooney M20J

4 Apr 1991 · Blue Ash, OH, United States

Hahne Enterprises Mooney M20J · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach

From Clermont County Airport (I69) to I77 · Blue Ash, OH

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Event

NTSB case
NYC91LA100
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
1 · 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
N5810C
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From Clermont County Airport (I69), Batavia, OHTo I77 · Blue Ash, OH
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
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
Destroyed

Cause areas

  • Pilot in command › Airspeed(vs), not maintained
  • Pilot in command › Altitude, misjudged
  • Pilot in command › Stall/spin, inadvertent

Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.

NTSB narrative

THE PILOT OF THE MOONEY M20J, N5810C, WAS DELIVERING HIS AIRPLANE TO THE BLUE ASH AIRPORT, OHIO FOR MINOR REPAIRS, WHEN HE CRASHED IN A WOODED AREA. HE HAD CALLED THE AIRPORT FOR LANDING INFORMATION MINUTES BEFORE THE ACCIDENT. AN FAA INSPECTOR SAID, 'I WOULD ESTIMATE THE ALTITUDE TO BE BETWEEN 200 AND 300 FEET ABOVE THE GROUND...THE AIRCRAFT WAS IN A NOSE HIGH ATTITUDE, THEN WENT INTO A SPIN...I THEN SAW THE AIRCRAFT HAD CRASHED.' THE LOCATION OF THE ACCIDENT WOULD HAVE BEEN A CLOSE BASE LEG FOR A VFR LANDING PATTERN. THE PILOT'S FLIGHT LOG SHOWED 3 FLIGHTS IN 1989, 2 FLIGHTS IN 1990, AND 1 FLIGHT IN 1991, ALL IN THE MOONEY M20J.

Probable cause

THE FAILURE OF THE PILOT TO MAINTAIN PROPER ALTITUDE AND AIRSPEED DURING A LANDING APPROACH, WHICH RESULTED IN A STALL AND SPIN AT TOO LOW AN ALTITUDE TO RECOVER. A FACTOR RELATED TO THE ACCIDENT WAS THE LACK OF RECENT FLIGHT EXPERIENCE BY THE PILOT.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record NYC91LA100
Event ID
20001212X16858
Case number
NYC91LA100
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: ba672920982c5f26b3131d7dec7e65e3f5955dfe40c7ed585de059653a11b48d; retrieved 2026-09-21T01:52:37.437Z.