MIA91FA057 · Mooney M20C
Mooney M20C · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) on approach
From Columbus Lowndes County Airport (UBS) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA91FA057
- 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
- Instrument 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
- N6600U
- Operator
- Cox, Fritz L. · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Columbus Lowndes County Airport (UBS), Columbus, MSTo 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
- Approach · IFR final approach
- 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
- Tree(s)
- 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
- Fuel system, carburetor › Ice
- Pilot in command › Carburetor heat, not used
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
FLT WAS CLRD FOR ILS APCH. ABOUT 10 MI FROM RWY PLT REPORTED HIS GLIDESLOPE WAS NOT WORKING. FLT WAS THEN CLEARED FOR ASR RADAR APCH. AT 1.5 MILES FROM RWY FLT WAS LOST FROM RADAR. WITNESSES REPORTED ACFT FLEW OVERHEAD AT TREE TOP LEVEL WITHOUT THE ENG RUNNING. ACFT HIT TREES AND THEN CRASHED INTO GND INVERTED. PROPELLER HAD NO ROTATION DAMAGE. NO EVIDENCE TO INDICATE PRECRASH MALFUNCTION OF ENGINE WAS NOTED. THE MIXTURE CONTROL WAS IN THE CRUISE LEAN POSITION AND THE CARBURETOR HEAT WAS IN THE COLD POSITION. NO INST APCH PLATES WERE FOUND OPEN IN THE COCKPIT. THE FLT WAS OPERATING IN CONDITIONS WHICH WOULD CAUSE VISIBLE CARB ICE AT CRUISE POWER AND SERIOUS CARB ICE AT GLIDE POWER. POST MORTEM EXAMINATION OF THE PLT INDICATED HE SUFFERED FROM MILD CEREBRAL ATROPHY AND HYPERTENSIVE ARTERIOSCLEROTIC HEART DISEASE. THE PLT WAS PRESCRIBED HYPERTENSIVE MEDICATION BUT WAS NOT TAKING IT AT THE TIME OF THE ACCIDENT.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S FAILURE TO USE CARBURETOR HEAT RESULTING IN LOSS OF ENGINE POWER DUE TO CARBURETOR ICE. A FACTOR IN THE ACCIDENT WAS THE PILOT'S MEDICAL CONDITION.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA91FA057
- Event ID
- 20001212X24780
- Case number
- MIA91FA057
- 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: b83561660727d54a116bd9aa897d9e05d5d8173961c1c14afcfce3d94a92a027; retrieved 2026-09-21T02:02:28.678Z.