ATL84LA214 · Mooney M-20F
Mooney M-20F · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) during initial climb
From an unrecorded airport to Sikeston Memorial Municipal Airport (SIK)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL84LA214
- 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 M-20F
- Aircraft type
- Mooney M-20
- 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
- N3207F
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Sikeston Memorial Municipal Airport (SIK), Sikeston, MO
- 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
- Total loss of engine power (mechanical failure)
- 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
- Fuel contamination; Fuel starvation
- 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
- Fluid, fuel › Starvation
- Fuel system, injector › Blocked(partial)
- Fuel system, injector › Foreign object
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE ACFT LANDED GEAR UP SHORT OF THE RWY IN AN ATTEMPT TO RETURN TO THE RWY AFTER A POWER LOSS AT LOW ALT. DURING TAKEOFF THE ARPT MANAGER SAID THE ENGINE SOUND CHANGE WAS CONSISTENT WITH POWER LOSS FROM FUEL STARVATION. FAA DID A POST ACCIDENT ENGINE TEST RUN AND HAD TO RUN THE ENGINE RICH WITH BOOST PUMP ON TO KEEP IT RUNNING. THE FUEL SYSTEM WAS EXAMINED TO DETERMINE WHY IT WAS RUNNING LEAN. THE FUEL INJECTOR INLET SCREEN SHOWED EVIDENCE OF CORROSION AND RUST. FUEL FLOW WAS FOUND TO BE LEAN. INJECTORS AND FLOW DIVIDER WERE REMOVED FOR A CHECK. THE INJECTOR WAS FOUND TO BE CONTAMINATED WITH DIRT, RUST AND WATER. THE THROTTLE LINKAGE WAS WORN AND BINDING. THE IDLE MIXTURE SETTING WAS ADJUSTEDTO THE LEAN SIDE. WHEN THE FUEL INJECTOR WAS REINSTALLED, THE ENGINE RAN ROUGH AND RICH. LEANED WITH THE MIXTURE CONTROL THE ENGINE RAN SMOOTHLY AT ALL SETTINGS. THERE WAS NO PROBLEM WITH THE THROTTLE LINKAGE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL84LA214
- Event ID
- 20001214X40184
- Case number
- ATL84LA214
- 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: 264b64bca94862a860f374cd094eb943fb4f9407a5207f5ab0a3474f489a47b5; retrieved 2026-09-21T17:33:26.084Z.