FTW89LA167 · Mooney M20E
Mooney M20E · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Beaver Creek Airport (9XS2) to Pecos Municipal Airport (PEQ)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW89LA167
- 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 M20E
- 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
- N9462V
- Operator
- Hall, David W. · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Beaver Creek Airport (9XS2), PORTER, TXTo Pecos Municipal Airport (PEQ), Pecos, TX
- 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 (mechanical failure)
- 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, oil › Exhaustion
- Lubricating system, oil line › Failure, total
- Lubricating system, oil line › Not secured
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, top overhaul, improper
- Propeller governor control › Leak
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
DURING CRUISE AT 6500 FT, OIL APPEARED ON THE WINDSCREEN. FORWARD VISIBILITY WAS SOON RESTRICTED & SEVERE VIBRATIONS PROMPTED THE PLT TO SECURE THE ENG. SUBSEQUENTLY, THE ACFT WAS DMGD WHEN IT HIT A SMALL TREE & ENCTRD UNEVEN TERRAIN DRG A FORCED LNDG. INV REVEALED A 90 DEG ALUMINUM FITTING ON THE PROP GOVERNOR OIL LINE HAD FAILED WHERE IT ENTERED THE ENG CASE. THE OIL LINE WAS STAINLESS STEEL & ITS MOVEMENT WAS DESIGNED TO BE RESTRAINED BY CLAMPS, WHICH WERE NOT IN PLACE. A SVC INSTRN, ISSUED IN 1986, RCMNDD THAT ALUMINUM FITTINGS BE UPGRADED TO STAINLESS STEEL. A SVC BULLETIN DATED 9/8/89 RELATED TO NUMEROUS 'ENGINE FAILURES DUE TO OIL STARVATION RESULTING FROM BROKEN GOVERNOR LINES.' ACCORDING TO THAT BULLETIN, FAILURE TO RE-INSTALL THE GOVERNOR LINE CLAMPS AFTER MAINT HAD BEEN THE CAUSE OF NUMEROUS ENG FAILURES. MAINT PERSONNEL ACCOMPLISHED BOTH A TOP OVERHAUL & AN ANNUAL INSPN, 50 & 12 HRS, RESPECTIVELY, BFR THE ACDNT.
Probable cause
IMPROPER MAINTENANCE, IMPROPERLY SECURED OIL LINE TO THE PROPELLER GOVERNOR, FAILURE OF THE PROPELLER GOVERNOR OIL LINE, AND SUBSEQUENT LOSS OF OIL, WHICH RESULTED IN OIL EXHAUSTION. FACTORS RELATED TO THE ACCIDENT WERE: FAILURE OF MAINTENANCE PERSONNEL TO FOLLOW THE SERVICE BULLETIN/INSTRUCTION, AND THE TREE AND ROUGH TERRAIN IN THE EMERGENCY LANDING AREA.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW89LA167
- Event ID
- 20001213X29382
- Case number
- FTW89LA167
- 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: 4948e7b919ef8a0c18325744459fe4ffb661fee7779c4aac33e98164b5a1891d; retrieved 2026-09-22T00:02:25.654Z.