NYC00FA118 · Mooney M20J
Mooney M20J · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Nashville International Airport (BNA) to Roanoke–Blacksburg Regional Airport (ROA)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC00FA118
- 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
- 5 · 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
- N5632H
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Nashville International Airport (BNA), Nashville, TNTo Roanoke–Blacksburg Regional Airport (ROA), Roanoke, 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 · 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
- In flight encounter with weather
- 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
- Aircraft control › Not maintained
- Pilot in command › Weather evaluation, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Prior to departure the pilot received a weather briefing, which included flight advisories for icing along his intended route of flight. The airplane was in cruise flight at 9,000 feet when the pilot reported he was 'riding in the tops of the clouds.' The pilot requested and was cleared to climb to 11,000 feet. The airplane leveled off at 9,400 feet; then began another climb, and reached a maximum altitude of 9,700 feet. Shortly thereafter, the airplane entered a steep vertical descent, and radar contact was lost. The airplane came to rest at an elevation of about 3,600 feet, in uneven, wooded terrain. Examination of the wreckage did not reveal any evidence of a mechanical failure of the airframe or engine. Satellite data obtained for the flight indicated the potential for icing in the area of the airplane's last radar return. The airplane was not approved for flight into known icing conditions. An airplane weight and balance calculation revealed that the airplane's weight was about 2,945 pounds, and the center of gravity (CG) was about 142.88 inches, at the time of the accident. According to the pilot operating handbook, the maximum certificated gross weight for the airplane was 2,740 pounds. Additionally, the CG range at the maximum certificated gross weight was about 128 to 138 inches.
Probable cause
The pilot's improper weather evaluation, which resulted in a loss of aircraft control. Factors in this accident were icing conditions, and aircraft loading which exceed the airplane's weight and balance limitations.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC00FA118
- Event ID
- 20001212X20892
- Case number
- NYC00FA118
- 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: a0691d5cd971a67d72eeca0f23af300d9555ce80ea26563b267c9f4496b3c143; retrieved 2026-09-20T21:18:41.116Z.