NYC00LA050 · Mooney M20-C
Mooney M20-C · Accident: loss of engine power during initial climb
From Reading Regional Airport (Carl A Spaatz Field) (RDG) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC00LA050
- 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 M20-C
- 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
- N6715U
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Reading Regional Airport (Carl A Spaatz Field) (RDG)To 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
- 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
- Engine assembly, connecting rod › Failure
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, overhaul, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Shortly after takeoff, the pilot experienced a loss of engine power, and performed a forced landing. Examination of the engine revealed a 1-inch by 6-inch hole, in the engine crankcase adjacent to the number two cylinder, and a fractured number two cylinder connecting rod. Additionally, the crankshaft installed in the engine, required the installation of sludge tubes in the crank-pins. Examination of the crankshaft revealed that the sludge tubes had not been installed. According to a representative of the engine manufacturer, the crankshaft installed in the engine was not approved for use in that model engine. Additionally, the absence of the crankshaft sludge tubes would not allow pressure oil to reach the connecting rod bearings and the connecting rod bearings would only receive splash, vapor and centrifugal force oil. The engine had been operated for about 940 hours since it was overhauled on April 16, 1990 and there were no logbook entries which indicated the crankshaft had been removed or replaced since the overhaul.
Probable cause
The failure of the number two connecting rod after an improper overhaul by maintenance personnel.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC00LA050
- Event ID
- 20001212X20307
- Case number
- NYC00LA050
- 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: 9e4d1e817a81c4a8f24c9c58a8ea3d4f2262879d061177d345ed295ac8bc69b9; retrieved 2026-09-21T20:20:18.034Z.