LAX87FA134 · Mooney M20J
Mooney M20J · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Seattle Paine Field International Airport (PAE) to Palo Alto Airport (PAO)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX87FA134
- 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 M20J
- 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
- N201LF
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Seattle Paine Field International Airport (PAE), Everett, WATo Palo Alto Airport (PAO), Palo Alto, CA
- 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
- Stall/spin
- 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 › Airspeed, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Flight into known adverse weather, continued
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, improper
- Pilot in command › Proper altitude, not attained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
BEFORE TAKEOFF, THE PLT WAS ADZD THAT STRONG HEAD WINDS, MOD TO SVR TURBC, MTN OBSCUREMENT, MULTIPLE LAYERS OF ICING & DETERIORATING WX WERE FORECAST ALONG HIS ROUTE OF FLT. HE FILED AN IFR CLNC & TOOK OFF AT 1115 PST. WHILE EN ROUTE, HE REQD THE MEDFORD WX & WAS ADZD OF STANDING LENTICULAR CLOUDS. AT 1328 PST, HE CANCELED HIS IFR CLNC. LATER, AT 1535, HE OBTAINED ANOTHER IFR CLNC & WAS ASSIGNED AN ALT OF 11,000'. AT 1546 PST, THE PLT RPRTD HE WAS ENCTRG DOWNDRAFTS; 8 MIN LATER, HE SAID HIS ALT WAS 9300'. SHORTLY, THEREAFTER, RADAR & RADIO CTC WERE LOST AFTER THE ACFT DSCNDD THRU 8900'. SUBSEQUENTLY, THE ACFT CRASHED ON THE LEE SIDE OF A 9025' MTN AT APRX THE 6200' LVL. IT WAS FOUND IN A NEAR VERTICAL NOSE DOWN ATTITUDE WITH ITS BELLY AGAINST AN IMPACT DAMAGED TREE. THE AFT FUSELAGE WAS BENT & TWISTED ABOUT 90 DEG, BUT THE EMPENNAGE WAS ESSENTIALLY UNDAMAGED. NO PREIMPACT PART FAILURE OR MALFUNCTION WAS EVIDENT. APRX 7 MI NORTH AT WEED ARPT (ELEV 2938'), THE WIND GUSTS WERE ESTD AT 70 TO 75 MPH.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX87FA134
- Event ID
- 20001213X30460
- Case number
- LAX87FA134
- 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: e09375bda718e75094807c6286749dcacee2d0ce1e61cb03211d9fe6f382a50c; retrieved 2026-09-21T04:13:01.754Z.