DEN99LA133 · Mooney M20F
Mooney M20F · Accident: on ground/water collision with object during takeoff
From No airport to Durango La Plata County Airport (DRO)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN99LA133
- 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 M20F
- 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
- N9390V
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From No airportTo Durango La Plata County Airport (DRO), Durango, CO
- 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
- Takeoff · roll/run
- 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
- On ground/water collision with object
- 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 › Clearance, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Preflight planning/preparation, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was in the process of flying his airplane (which had just undergone an annual inspection) from Evanston, Wyoming, to Durango, Colorado. While en route, an abnormally high temperature was registered on the cylinder head temperature gauge, and the engine began to run rough. The pilot made a precautionary landing on a State highway. The airplane struck several T-posts, denting the leading edge and tearing the bottom of the left wing in two places. A mechanic from a nearby airport made temporary repairs, and a ferry permit was obtained from FAA's Flight Standards District Office. Law enforcement officers would not permit the pilot to take off on the State highway, but would allow him to take off from an intersecting county road. The road was narrow, with powerlines alongside the road and crossing at irregular intervals. The pilot examined the roadway and determined he could depart safely. Traffic was halted in both directions. During the takeoff roll, the airplane's left wing struck a 4'x4' post supporting a speed limit sign.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate preflight planning and preparation and his failure to maintain clearance from the signpost. A factor was the signpost.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN99LA133
- Event ID
- 20001212X19256
- Case number
- DEN99LA133
- 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: 4a4e4e7f060b4c1f6c2df99ae85af71c06e438e9b2fcfde2318bb78ff25dab8a; retrieved 2026-09-21T10:55:12.642Z.