FTW87FA021 · Mooney M20E
Mooney M20E · Accident: loss of control in flight en route
From Houston Southwest Airport (AXH) to Coulter Field (CFD)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW87FA021
- 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 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
- N9347M
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Houston Southwest Airport (AXH), Arcola, TXTo Coulter Field (CFD), Bryan, 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 · 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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
- Tree(s)
- 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 › Aircraft handling, improper
- Pilot in command › Maneuver, excessive
- Pilot in command › Spatial disorientation
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PLT DEPARTED ARCOLA, TX, VFR, ON RWY 10, MADE A 180 DEGREE LEFT CLIMBING TURN AND ENTERED CLOUDS AT ABOUT THE BOUNDARY LINE ON THE WEST SIDE OF THE ARPT. THE RADAR OPERATOR STATED THE ACFT CONTINUED WESTBOUND ONE TO TWO MILES BEYOND THE ARPT THEN ENTERED AN ABRUPT LEFT DESCENDING TURN AND DISAPPEARED FROM RADAR. THE ACFT DESCENDED FROM THE LOW CLOUDS INTO A SMALL CLEARING AT HIGH RATE OF SPEED. IT CLIPPED THE TOP FROM TWO SMALL TREES IN THE CLEARING AND ATTEMPTED TO CLIMB. LIGHT GROUND CONTACT WAS MADE AND THEN THE ACFT IMPACTED AND SEPARATED A LARGE DEAD TREE IMMEDIATELY ABOVE GROUND LEVEL. IT THEN CLIMBED TO AN ALTITUDE OF 20-25 FT AND COLLIDED WITH OTHER LARGE TREES. IT CONTINUED TRAVEL ABOUT 100 FT INTO A HEAVILY WOODED AREA AND CAME TO REST IN A NEAR VERTICAL NOSE DOWN ATTITUDE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW87FA021
- Event ID
- 20001213X35167
- Case number
- FTW87FA021
- 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 1986-11-22.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 4177ad4d076b5c8f2098474e1886d62ed19c2943626b66a6f1b494bf777ef11a; retrieved 2026-09-21T04:19:52.602Z.