MKC84FCA02 · Mooney M20E
Mooney M20E · Accident: partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure) during initial climb
From Spirit of St Louis Airport (SUS) to Decatur Airport (DEC)
Event
- NTSB case
- MKC84FCA02
- 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 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
- N9373M
- Operator
- Clement Atwell
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Spirit of St Louis Airport (SUS), Chesterfield, MOTo Decatur Airport (DEC), Decatur, IL
- 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
- Partial 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; Stall
- 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
- Fluid, fuel › Contamination
- Pilot in command › Aircraft preflight, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Stall, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE ACFT CRASHED SHORT OF THE RWY AFTER MAKING A 180 DEG TURN AFTER TAKEOFF FOLLOWING A LOSS OF POWER. THE PLT STATED THAT AFTER TAKEOFF & AT AN INDICATED AIRSPEED OF 100 TO 110 MPH, AT AN ALTITUDE OF 50 FT, THE ACFT ENG STARTED TO LOSE POWER. HE DECIDED TO RETURN TO THE AIRPORT AND THE ACFT STARTED TO STALL WHILE IN THE TURN CRASHING INTOAN OPEN DITCH NEAR THE END OF THE RWY. INVESTIGATION SHOWED A DISCREPANCY OF THE FUEL NOZZLES IN THE NO. 4 CYLINDER WHICH WERE FOUND BLOCKED. THE SERVO FUEL INJECTOR HAD WATER IN THE FUEL CHAMBER & THE FUEL LINE FROM THE FUEL STRAINER TO FUEL CONTROL HAD WASTER MIXED WITH GASOLINE. THE PROPELLER WAS REMOVED & CHECKED NORMAL.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MKC84FCA02
- Event ID
- 20001214X40820
- Case number
- MKC84FCA02
- 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: c1e39ccf4038ec097c6d21c30302a285e44c4c9d54477d834d1d78008711d020; retrieved 2026-09-21T17:28:43.361Z.