MKC88LA022 · Mooney M20J
Mooney M20J · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Tuscaloosa National Airport (TCL) to Ashburton Airport (ASG)
Event
- NTSB case
- MKC88LA022
- 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 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
- N201CQ
- Operator
- Donald E. Keifer · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Tuscaloosa National Airport (TCL), Tuscaloosa, ALTo Ashburton Airport (ASG)
- 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 · descent
- 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
- 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
- Pilot in command › Flight into known adverse weather, continued
- Pilot in command › Stall, inadvertent
- Wing › Ice
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
DRG A WX BRIEFING BFR TKOF, THE PLT WAS ADZD THAT VFR FLT WAS NOT RCMDD DUE TO LOW CEILING & ICING CONDS. HE WAS ADZD THE FREEZING LVL WAS FORECAST TO BE AT 4000' OVER LITTLE ROCK & TO SLOPE DOWN TO THE SURFACE IN SE MISSOURI. ALSO, HE WAS BRIEFED ON PIREPS OF ICING CONDS IN THE AREAS OF LITTLE ROCK, JONESBORO & FT SMITH, AR. HE ELECTED TO PROCEED VFR-ON-TOP. WHILE EN ROUTE AT 8500', HE OBTAINED THE FAYETTEVILLE WX & WAS ADZD OF IFR CONDS ON HIS ROUTE. HE FILED AN IFR FLT PLAN & WAS ASSIGNED AN ALT OF 5000'. DRG THE DSCNT, THE ACFT ENTERED THE CLOUDS AT 7000'. APRX 40 MI FM THE DESTN, IT ENCTRD ICING CONDS. THE PLT STATED THAT EXCESSIVE ICE ACCUMULATED ON THE ACFT, BUT DUE TO DARKENING CONDS (DUSK), HE DIDN'T NOTICE MUCH ON THE STRUCTURE. HE SAID THAT DRG AN ILS APCH, THE ACFT BECAME SLUGGISH, SO HE ADDED POWER, BUT THE LEFT WING STALLED & THE ACFT STRUCK THE TERRAIN SHORT OF THE RWY & WAS DAMAGED.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MKC88LA022
- Event ID
- 20001213X32602
- Case number
- MKC88LA022
- 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: ffda28b83a968de4621a605e7974fc8718811d70d3a07bd27aa3e0f85552b493; retrieved 2026-09-23T11:28:57.260Z.