CHI90DER06 · Mooney M20C
Mooney M20C · Accident: loss of control in flight en route
From T-Bo Field Airport (WI32) to Burnett County Airport (RZN)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI90DER06
- 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
- 1 · 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
- N9468V
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From T-Bo Field Airport (WI32), MADELINE ISLAND, WITo Burnett County Airport (RZN), Siren, WI
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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
- Pilot in command › Aircraft control, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
PILOT WAS REPORTED MISSING APRX 4 DAYS AFTER HE HAD DEPARTED FOR MADELINE ISLAND. AN AIR SEARCH WAS NOT SUCCESSFUL IN LOCATING THE AIRPLANE AND PILOT. ABOUT 3 MONTHS LATER, ON 11/17/90, THE WRECKAGE WAS FOUND. THE AIRPLANE HAD IMPACTED THE GROUND AT A HIGH IMPACT ANGLE AND AT A HIGH IMPACT SPEED. THE PILOT'S WIFE TOLD INVESTIGATORS THAT HE 'LOVED TO GO TO MADELINE ISLAND AND DRINK.' WITNESSES REPORTED THAT THE PILOT WAS LAST SEEN IN A BAR AT 0100 CDT, AND THAT HE APPEARED TO BE QUITE INTOXICATED. THE PILOT ASKED SEVERAL PEOPLE FOR A RIDE TO THE AIRPORT, BUT NONE RECALLED SEEING HIM LEAVE THE BAR. THE AIRPLANE WAS NOT OBSERVED AT THE MADELINE ISLAND AIRPORT LATER THAT MORNING. THE PILOT'S MEDICAL CERTIFICATE HAD A LIMITATION AGAINST NIGHT FLYING DUE TO COLOR BLINDNESS AND REQUIRED CORRECTIVE LENSES FOR NEAR VISION. THERE WERE NO GLASSES LOCATED IN THE WRECKAGE.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S FAILURE TO MAINTAIN CONTROL OF THE AIRPLANE. FACTORS RELATED TO THE ACCIDENT WERE: THE DARK NIGHT, THE PILOT'S ALCOHOL IMPAIRMENT, AND HIS NIGHT FLYING RESTRICTION.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI90DER06
- Event ID
- 20001212X23919
- Case number
- CHI90DER06
- 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: 3f3bcb8d644c17913dfd89faa88bfc0ddb3fe08a673f2d7641a2398d6710c1ed; retrieved 2026-09-21T02:22:51.392Z.