FTW85LA344 · Mooney M20J
Mooney M20J · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Jack Brooks Regional Airport (BPT) to Lakefront Airport (NEW)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW85LA344
- 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
- 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
- N4793H
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Jack Brooks Regional Airport (BPT), Beaumont, TXTo Lakefront Airport (NEW), New Orleans, LA
- 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
- Visual flight rules (VFR) flight into instrument meteorological conditions (IMC)
- 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
- Light condition › Dark night
- Pilot in command › In flight weather avoidance assistance, not followed
- Pilot in command › Pull-up, not performed
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, inadvertent
- Weather condition › Rain
- Weather condition › Thunderstorm
- Weather condition › Turbulence(thunderstorms)
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Kraemer, LA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
ACFT WAS DESCENDING FROM CRUISE ALT WHEN IT ENTERED A RADAR LVL 3 THUNDERSTORM AND CONTROL WAS LOST DURING A NIGHT VFR FLT. THE ACFT IMPACTED A SWAMP IN A VERTICAL ATTITUDE WITH THE RT WING LEADING SLIGHTLY. THE LFT WING WAS FOUND ABOUT 10' SOUTH OF THE MAIN CRATER INDICATING THAT THE ACFT WAS INTACT AT IMPACT. THE PLT HAD A STORM SCOPE INSTALLED THAT MORNING AND HAD RECEIVED A CHECKOUT ON ITS OPERATION PRIOR TO DEPARTURE. NEW ORLEANS TRACON HAD ADVISED THE PLT OF THE PRESENCE OF THE CELL ALONG HIS FLT PATH, BUT HE DID NOT ACKNOWLEDGE. RECORDED RADAR DATA INDICATED THAT THE ACFT WAS IN A NORMAL DESCENT PROFILE WHEN CONTROL WAS LOST AND THE ACFT ENTERED A VERT DESCENT. THE RADAR LVL 3 CELL WAS PROBABLY ACCOMPANIED BY AT LEAST MODERATE RAIN SHOWERS AND TURB. THE PLT HAD RECEIVED BRIEFINGS FROM BOTH FSS AND NWS AND WAS AWARE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF ISOLATED THUNDERSTORMS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW85LA344
- Event ID
- 20001214X37785
- Case number
- FTW85LA344
- 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 1985-09-10.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 3335aee2d1cd44684d013f9a0b3da8229cec89dd13caf6c9a531ebb36b977765; retrieved 2026-09-21T04:51:07.807Z.