FTW84LA341 · Mooney M20
Mooney M20 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Lakefront Airport (NEW) to Sphinx International Airport (SPX)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW84LA341
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Mooney M20
- 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
- N3594H
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Lakefront Airport (NEW)To Sphinx International Airport (SPX)
- 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 · 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
- In flight encounter with weather
- 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
- Pilot in command › Flight into known adverse weather, initiated
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
AT 0729 CDT THE PLT FILED A FLIGHT PLAN AND OBTAINED A WX BRIEF FORECASTING MOIST UNSTABLE AIR WITH SEVERAL SCATTERED AND BROKEN CLOUD LAYERS BEGINNING AT 1,500 FT. THE BRIEFER FURTHER ADVISED THE PLT OF THUNDERSTORM ACTIVITY AT VARIOUS LOCATIONS ALONG THE PROPOSED ROUTE OF FLIGHT. AT 0855, THE ACFT DEPARTED AND CLIMBED TO 8,000 FT. ACCORDING TO THE PLT, ABOUT 1/2 HR INTO THE FLIGHT A 'HEAVY LAYER OF CLOUDS' WERE SEEN AHEAD, AT AND BELOW HIS CRUISING ACT. A DESCENT TO 4,000 FT WAS REQUESTED AND GRANTED BY ARTCC. AT0926 THE PLT ASKED LAFAYETTE APCH CONTROL WHICH WAY THE WX WAS MOVING AND THAT THEY WERE IN SOME 'ROUGH STUFF'. FOR APRX THE NEXT 23 MIN THE ACFT REPEATEDLY ENCOUNTERED AREAS OF TURBULENCE VIOLENT ENOUGH TO CAUSE SUBSTANTIAL AIRFRAME DAMAGE AND RENDER SOME OF THE FLT INSTRUMENTS INOP. THE ACFT WAS VECTORED OUT OF THE WX AND TO AN ALTERNATE ARPT. AT 0957 A WX ADVISORY WAS ISSUED WHICH WARNED OF A LINE OF LEVEL 3 TO 5 THUNDERSTORMS ALONG THE ACFT'S ROUTE. HOWEVER, THE PLT TOOK OF AT 0900 & WAS NOT AWARE OF THE ADVISORY.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW84LA341
- Event ID
- 20001214X40713
- Case number
- FTW84LA341
- 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: c80ca3b70dadd876ed45cb4505a35347139ded63c678c5f13c3172ec90958eb3; retrieved 2026-09-23T19:58:12.956Z.