ATL88FA131 · Mooney M20G
Mooney M20G · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From 46A · Blairsville, GA to 4A0 · Stockbridge, GA
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL88FA131
- 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 M20G
- 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
- N3638N
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 46A · Blairsville, GATo 4A0 · Stockbridge, GA
- 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
- In flight encounter with weather
- 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
- Visual flight rules (VFR) flight into instrument meteorological conditions (IMC)
- 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 › VFR flight into imc, continued
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
BEFORE DEPG BLAIRSVILLE, THE PLT REQD THE CURRENT ATLANTA WX FOR THE DEKALB-PEACHTREE ARPT & FOR AN AFTERNOON OUTLOOK. HE TOLD THE BRIEFER THAT HE HAD RECEIVED A PREVIOUS WX BRIEFING. HE WAS INFORMED THAT THE FORECAST WAS FOR INSTRUMENT CONDS UNTIL NOON WITH A CHANCE OF OVERCAST SKIES AT 1500 FT. HE DEPARTED BLAIRSVILLE AT 1210 EST WITH INTENTIONS OF FOLLOWING HIGHWAYS TO THE ATLANTA AREA. A PERSON, WHO WAS DRIVING A CAR BETWEEN BLAIRSVILLE & THE SUBSEQUENT CRASH SITE, SAW A MOONEY FLYING IN & OUT OF FOG AT ABOUT 150' AGL. THERE WAS RAIN, LOW CEILING & POOR VIS ALONG THAT ROUTE. WHEN THE ACFT DID NOT ARRIVE AT THE DESTN, A SEARCH WAS BEGUN. THE ACFT WAS FND WHERE IT HAD CRASHED ON RISING, WOODED TERRAIN ON MT OGLETHORPE AT AN ELEV OF ABOUT 3290'. AN EXAM REVEALED THE ACFT WAS IN LEVEL FLT JUST BEFORE IMPACT. NO PREIMPACT PART FAILURE OR MALFUNCTION WAS FOUND. ALTHOUGH THE PLT WAS INSTRUMENT RATED, HE HAD NO RECENT INSTRUMENT FLT TIME.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL88FA131
- Event ID
- 20001213X25374
- Case number
- ATL88FA131
- 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: 36e6909277880079a02795cb81524b0f626be4a04c458977f06163c3ff91feb0; retrieved 2026-09-21T03:46:35.053Z.