ATL85FA252 · Mooney M20C
Mooney M20C · Accident: loss of control in flight en route
From Columbus Airport (CSG) to Nashville International Airport (BNA)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL85FA252
- 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
- N5844Q
- Operator
- Paul L. Tappin · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Columbus Airport (CSG), Columbus, GATo Nashville International Airport (BNA), Nashville, TN
- 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
- 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 › Aircraft handling, inadequate
- Pilot in command › IFR procedure, attempted
- Pilot in command › Overconfidence in personal ability
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Columbus, GA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
ACFT DEPARTED AIRPORT AFTER ENROUTE STOP FOR FUELING.VFR CONDITIONS WITH BROKEN CLOUDS AT 2800 FEET AND TURBULENCE IN CLOUDS.ACFT WAS CLEARED TO 4500 AND PIC ASKED TO REPORT REACHING.DURING CLIMB PIC WAS ASKED HIS ALTITUDE.HIS RESPONSE WAS UNINTELLIGIBLE FOLLOWED BY LOSS OF RADAR CONTACT.A WITNESS DRIVING ON THE INTERSTATE ADJACENT TO THE CRASH SITE WATCHED AN AIRPLANE SPIN OUT OF THE SKY AT ABOUT THE LOCATION OF THE CRASH SITE UNTIL IT DISAPPEARED BEHIND TREES.ACFT IMPACTED IN A STEEP NOSE DOWN ATTITUDE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL85FA252
- Event ID
- 20001214X37351
- Case number
- ATL85FA252
- 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: 475eb4a881789bb8d65dc676ed2171ecb801e49999f8f926846e3c4979ed3620; retrieved 2026-09-21T04:53:12.634Z.