FTW00LA190 · Mooney M20C
Texas Aero Mooney M20C · Accident: partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure) on approach
From Waco Regional Airport (ACT) to F50 · LAKE WHITNEY, TX
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW00LA190
- 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 M20C
- 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
- N6932N
- Operator
- Texas Aero
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Waco Regional Airport (ACT), Waco, TXTo F50 · LAKE WHITNEY, 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
- Approach · VFR pattern final
- 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
- Partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure)
- 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
- Stall/mush
- 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
- Fuel system, carburetor › Worn
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The flight instructor simulated an engine failure by pulling the throttle to idle. The student pilot overshot the final approach and increased the bank angle in an attempt to realign the aircraft on final. The instructor stated that he did not have his hands on the controls. He felt the airplane buffet approximately 75 feet agl, grabbed the controls, leveled the wings, lowered the nose and attempted to add full power. The engine did not produce full power and the airplane stalled. The instructor pulled aft on the control yoke in an attempt to land flat instead of nose low. The airplane then impacted the ground and slid across the runway. Examination of the engine's carburetor revealed that its throttle shaft, throttle shaft bushing and packings, air metering valve, accelerator pump seal, and accelerator pump linkage were worn.
Probable cause
The partial loss of engine power, which resulted from the worn carburetor.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW00LA190
- Event ID
- 20001212X21239
- Case number
- FTW00LA190
- 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: 5f25c58def5813ee8f800dcf2ca50d91f1f45e5432f41790bb4b299fd875f306; retrieved 2026-09-21T20:11:03.282Z.