FTW00LA194 · Mooney M20R
Mooney M20R · Accident: partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical) during initial climb
From Talihina Municipal Airport (6F1) to Tulsa International Airport (TUL)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW00LA194
- 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 M20R
- 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
- N22166
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Talihina Municipal Airport (6F1)To Tulsa International Airport (TUL), Tulsa, OK
- 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
- Partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical)
- 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 injection control/system
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, adjustment, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During takeoff, the engine started to 'cough' and would not produce enough power to maintain flight. The pilot landed the single-engine airplane on the remaining runway; however, the airplane overran the runway and impacted a ditch and bushes. The pilot reported that a similar engine event occurred a few weeks prior to the accident, and as a result, a mechanic replaced the engine driven fuel pump. An engine test run was conducted after the accident with the second fuel pump installed. No anomalies were noted during the test run. Both the first and second fuel pumps were inspected, leak checked, and flow tested at the engine manufacturer's facility. The first fuel pump did contain an air leak; however, the second fuel pump, which was installed on the engine at the time of the accident, did not display any anomalies that would have prevented its operation on the airplane. The second fuel pump was reinstalled on the engine, and the engine was reinstalled on the airplane. After redelivery of the airplane, the engine lost power during taxi operations. The mechanic removed and replaced the second fuel pump with a third pump and adjusted the fuel injector settings. The second engine driven fuel pump was tested a second time with similar results as the first test. No anomalies have occurred with the engine since the fuel injector adjustment.
Probable cause
the partial loss of engine power on takeoff, which resulted from incorrect adjustment of the fuel injector system by maintenance personnel.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW00LA194
- Event ID
- 20001212X21240
- Case number
- FTW00LA194
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2000-06-28.
- API snapshot SHA-256: c5da206a23a77d93e5402505c8c2d6e872daaac183ff15f6fc7b0911e591be92; retrieved 2026-09-22T12:46:05.651Z.