LAX91LA341 · Mooney M20E
Mooney M20E · Accident: loss of engine power during initial climb
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX91LA341
- 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 M20E
- 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
- N5819Q
- Operator
- Todd Dreyer
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo 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
- Initial climb
- 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 engine power
- 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
- Fuel contamination
- 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
- Fluid, fuel › Contamination
- Unknown › Reason for occurrence undetermined, intentional
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Riverside, CA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE CERTIFICATED PRIVATE PILOT AND A PASSENGER DEPARTED ON A LOCAL AREA FLIGHT. WHEN THE AIRPLANE REACHED ABOUT 400 FEET ABOVE THE GROUND, THE ENGINE SUDDENLY BEGAN TO RUN ROUGH AND LOSE POWER. THE PILOT EXECUTED A 180 DEGREE TURN TO RETURN TO THE AIRPORT. WHILE ON FINAL APPROACH THE PILOT NOTICED AN AIRPLANE LANDING ON THE RUNWAY AND ANOTHER OCCUPYING THE TAXIWAY ON WHICH HE HAD PLANNED AN EMERGENCY LANDING. THE PILOT EXTENDED HIS APPROACH AND LANDED IN A FIELD EAST OF THE AIRPORT. THE AIRPLANE WAS SUBSTANTIALLY DAMAGED AND THE OCCUPANTS RECEIVED MINOR INJURIES. NO MALFUNCTION OF THE ENGINE WAS FOUND. AN EXAMINATION OF THE FUEL REVEALED THAT FUEL IN THE RIGHT FUEL TANK WAS CONTAMINATED WITH AN UNDETERMINED AMOUNT OF A LUBRICATING OIL-LIKE SUBSTANCE. NO ENGINE OR FUEL SYSTEM PROBLEMS INVOLVING FUEL OBTAINED FROM THE FUEL VENDOR WERE REPORTED.
Probable cause
THE CONTAMINATION OF FUEL IN THE RIGHT TANK OF THE ACCIDENT AIRPLANE WITH AN UNKNOWN OIL-LIKE SUBSTANCE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX91LA341
- Event ID
- 20001212X17887
- Case number
- LAX91LA341
- 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 1991-08-02.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 916bba9ab8ade93608e7daf4bb00383e5c73906cac8167610b69ed95bd96d01a; retrieved 2026-09-21T23:29:42.014Z.