NYC88FA041 · Mooney M20C
Mooney M20C · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From 8G5 · ST. MARYS, PA to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC88FA041
- 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
- 4 · 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 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
- N3644H
- Operator
- Carlos D. Salas · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 8G5 · ST. MARYS, PATo 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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 › Ice/frost removal from aircraft, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Preflight planning/preparation, inadequate
- Wing › Ice
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Saint Marys, PA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
WHILE GETTING FUEL, THE PILOT OF THE MOONEY M20C AND HIS 3 PALS WERE ATTEMPTING TO REMOVE FROST WITH PAPER TOWELS AND PLASTIC CREDIT CARDS AFTER BEING TOLD BY THE FUEL TRUCK DRIVER THAT THE ARPT HAD NO ICE REMOVAL SOLUTION. A WITNESS STATED THAT AS THE ATTEMPT WAS BEING MADE TO REMOVE THE FROST & ICE, MORE FROST AND ICE WAS FORMING. WITNESSES WHO OBSERVED THE AIRCRAFT ON THE TAKEOFF STATED THE ROLL WAY VERY LONG; THE CLIMB AND TURNING BANK WAS STEEP; AND THAT THE AIRCRAFT DESCENT ANGLE WAS STEEP. THE ACFT COLLIDED WITH TREES AND BURST INTO FLAMES.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC88FA041
- Event ID
- 20001213X32607
- Case number
- NYC88FA041
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1987-11-15.
- API snapshot SHA-256: bdd335be9137fcb33c1a2af655cd444a7af8f54a1e82102dd5cdd4f546fba978; retrieved 2026-09-21T03:54:37.861Z.