FTW00LA127 · Mooney M20F
Mooney M20F · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Conroe-North Houston Regional Airport (CXO) to San Marcos Regional Airport (HYI)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW00LA127
- 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
- N7038V
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Conroe-North Houston Regional Airport (CXO), Conroe, TXTo San Marcos Regional Airport (HYI), San Marcos, TX
- 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 · climb to cruise
- 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
- Total loss of engine power (mechanical failure)
- 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 › Seized
- Lubricating system, oil line › Ruptured
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane was climbing through 4,000 feet msl when the engine rpm increased, and the engine oil pressure dropped to zero. The pilot reported the situation to departure control and they vectored the airplane toward the nearest airport. The engine began to shake violently for about 15 seconds and then seized. The pilot elected to land in a field short of the runway. The airplane touched down approximately wings level with the landing gear retracted, and 'slid through the field for roughly 125 feet' before coming to a stop. The pilot stated he did not lower the landing gear due to the need for altitude and airspeed to reach the field. Examination of the engine revealed that the #4 connecting rod was sticking out of the crankcase. Further examination revealed that an oil cooler line had ruptured. The last annual inspection was completed on March 19, 2000, eight flight hours prior to the accident.
Probable cause
Engine seizure due to the rupture of an oil cooler line.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW00LA127
- Event ID
- 20001212X20817
- Case number
- FTW00LA127
- 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: d6bb0d773683dabc7c5eae5b839b0d03b69caa6c29dec3cb463892e6f71f847e; retrieved 2026-09-21T20:15:13.855Z.