LAX00LA222 · Mooney M20D
Mooney M20D · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Grand Junction Regional Airport (GJT) to Big Bear City Airport (L35)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX00LA222
- 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 M20D
- 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
- N31M
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Grand Junction Regional Airport (GJT), Grand Junction, COTo Big Bear City Airport (L35), BIG BEAR, CA
- 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
- Total loss of engine power (non-mechanical)
- 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
- Fuel contamination
- 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
- Fluid, fuel › Contamination, other than water
- Fuel system › Restricted
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot collided with a sand dune after making a forced landing on a service road. It was during cruise flight when the pilot had first observed the fluctuation (a drop) on the fuel pressure indicator. He reported the same fluctuation after switching from the left tank to the right another hour into the flight. Activating the electric fuel pump had remedied the situation and it was left on for another hour. The fuel tanks were then switched again and the fuel pump was turned off. About 25 minutes had passed when the pressure dropped to zero and the engine lost power. The pilot tried various engine out procedures and to maneuver the airplane in an effort to get the engine to run, but his attempts to restart were unsuccessful. He had been receiving radar flight following service and declared an emergency before landing the airplane on a service road next to some railroad tracks. The left wing was torn and the right main gear had collapsed. The sheriff deputy who responded to the scene did not observe any fuel in the left tank and very minimal fuel in the right wing fuel tank. The deputy also reported the fuel gauges were indicating fuel on board when he turned the master switch on. A post crash inspection of the fuel selector body and screen revealed contamination in the system. The owner photographed the components, which displayed debris in the selector body below the fuel screen area. Both fuel tanks were resealed with a similar colored compound in December 1997. The last annual inspection was performed on the airplane in December 1999. The maintenance technician did not recollect any unusual contamination at the time.
Probable cause
The fuel flow became restricted by remnants of fuel tank sealant that had accumulated in the fuel selector screen. Contributing to the pilot's inability to restart the engine in flight was the empty fuel tank in the left wing and the fuel gauge indication. The constrained landing area was also a factor.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX00LA222
- Event ID
- 20001212X21263
- Case number
- LAX00LA222
- 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, coordinates. 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: f781981a85ee799fd5ad1b5b555d346b634c15d11842426a4ff340c90e4b94c9; retrieved 2026-09-22T12:49:46.015Z.