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FTW86LA166 · Mooney M20E

13 Sept 1986 · Oklahoma City, OK, United States

Mooney M20E · Accident: partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route

From 2DT · Oklahoma City, OK to OF7 · Eufaula, OK

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Event

NTSB case
FTW86LA166
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
N1250X
Operator
Unknown
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From 2DT · Oklahoma City, OKTo OF7 · Eufaula, OK
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 · climb to 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
Partial 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

  • Engine assembly › Failure, total
  • Fluid, oil › Exhaustion
  • Pilot in command › Aircraft preflight, inadequate

Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.

NTSB narrative

THE PILOT APPARENTLY HAD NEGLECTED TO CHECK HIS ENGINE OIL SUPPLY BEFORE TAKEOFF SINCE THERE WAS NO OIL IN THE CRANKCASE AT THE TIME OF THE ACCIDENT. IF FIVE QUARTS OF OIL (THE AMOUNT THE PILOT REPORTEDLY STATED WAS IN THE ENGINE AT TAKEOFF) HAD LEAKED OUT DURING A FIVE MINUTE FLIGHT, THEN THE BOTTOM OF THE FUSELAGE AND THE EMPENNAGE ASSEMBLY WOULD HAVE BEEN COATED WITH OIL. EXAMINATION OF THE AIRCRAFT AT THE ACCIDENT SITE SHOWED NO SIGNS OF AN OIL LEAK. THE FORCED LANDING WAS MADE ON ROUGH AND UNEVEN TERRAIN. AFTER TOUCHDOWN THE NOSE GEAR CONTACTED A DIRT BANK AND COLLAPSED.

Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record FTW86LA166
Event ID
20001213X34789
Case number
FTW86LA166
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: 7a30fc7e0c29f068fdf56afb41deddb04028f5fb7048c99178e7c5c85e6f2d1b; retrieved 2026-09-22T01:13:32.146Z.