LAX91LA004 · Mooney M20K
Mooney M20K · Accident: on ground/water collision with object during landing
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX91LA004
- 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
- 1
- 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 M20K
- 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
- N252YD
- Operator
- Thomas K Pischel · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- 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
- Landing · landing roll
- 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
- On ground/water collision with object
- 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
- Other person › Planning/decision, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
DURING A PLANNED 10-MINUTE LONG LOCAL NIGHTIME FLIGHT THE PILOT TOOK OFF AND LANDED AT THE UNCONTROLLED AIRPORT. THE AIRPORT'S RUNWAY LIGHTS AND THE AIRPLANE'S POSITION LIGHTS WERE OPERATING. DURING THE LANDING ROLLOUT THE AIRPLANE COLLIDED WITH A PERSON WHO WAS WALKING ON THE RUNWAY. THE PILOT REPORTED THAT HE HAD NOT OBSERVED THE PERSON IN SUFFICIENT TIME TO AVOID THE COLLISION. THE PERSON, WHO WAS FATALLY INJURED, HAD BEEN PREVIOUSLY WARNED BY AIRPORT MANAGEMENT PERSONNEL NOT TO WALK ON THE RUNWAY.
Probable cause
THE AIRPLANE'S GROUND COLLISION WITH AN UNAUTHORIZED PERSON WHO WAS LOCATED ON THE ACTIVE RUNWAY. A CONTRIBUTING FACTOR WAS RELATED TO THE NIGHTTIME (LIGHT) CONDITION WHICH LIMITED THE PILOT'S ABILITY TO SEE THE PERSON PRIOR TO THE IMPACT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX91LA004
- Event ID
- 20001212X24484
- Case number
- LAX91LA004
- 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 1990-10-08.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 136047bd68fdeb1e1abecb0b31b888cc35bc837037aea0c8e745bc0873748e09; retrieved 2026-09-21T02:07:20.755Z.