BFO91FA061 · Mooney M20J
Mooney M20J · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Lonesome Pine Airport (LNP) to Shenandoah Valley Regional Airport (SHD)
Event
- NTSB case
- BFO91FA061
- 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
- Instrument 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
- N5809J
- Operator
- Perry E. Brunk · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Lonesome Pine Airport (LNP), Wise, VATo Shenandoah Valley Regional Airport (SHD), Harrisonburg, VA
- 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 · descent
- 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 encounter with weather
- 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
- Visual flight rules (VFR) flight into instrument meteorological conditions (IMC)
- 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 › Design stress limits of aircraft, exceeded
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, continued
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT WAS EN ROUTE AT 11,500 FEET AND WAS RECEIVING TRAFFIC ADVISORIES FROM AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL, WHO ADVISED HIM OF HEAVY PRECIPITATION AHEAD. THE PILOT BEGAN A DESCENT ABOUT 14 MILES FROM HIS DESTINATION. ATC ADVISED THE PILOT TO MAINTAIN VISUAL METEOROLOGICAL CONDITIONS, WHICH HE ACKNOWLEDGED. THE PILOT LATER REPORTED HE HAD ENCOUNTERED RAIN AND TURBULENCE AND THAT HE WAS NOT IN VMC. ATC LOST CONTACT WITH THE AIRPLANE SOON AFTERWARDS. WITNESSES REPORTED A SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WHEN THEY SAW THE AIRPLANE DESCEND AND CRASH. THE INVESTIGATION REVEALED THE AIRPLANE HAD AN INFLIGHT BREAKUP; WRECKAGE WAS STREWN A DISTANCE OF ABOUT TWO MILES. THE EXAMINATION DID NOT DISCLOSE EVIDENCE OF MECHANICAL MALFUNCTION.
Probable cause
THE PILOTS FAILURE TO MAINTAIN AIRCRAFT CONTROL WHICH RESULTED IN OVERSTRESS OF THE AIRPLANE. CONTRIBUTING WAS VFR FLIGHT INTO IMC AND THUNDERSTORMS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record BFO91FA061
- Event ID
- 20001212X17457
- Case number
- BFO91FA061
- 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: c80385b04bc03f5c73d9f79d782d9974fffba0b474b1f703e6ffc6a103896f9e; retrieved 2026-09-21T01:44:16.204Z.