ATL83LA204 · Mooney M20K
Mooney M20K · Accident: undershoot on approach
From AIY · Atlantic City, NJ to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL83LA204
- 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 M20K
- 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
- N9872Q
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From AIY · Atlantic City, NJTo not recorded
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern final
- 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
- Undershoot
- 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 › Clearance, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Proper glidepath, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE ACFT COLLIDED WITH A CHAIN LINK FENCE AND A DIRT BANK ON THE FINAL APPROACH JUST PRIOR TO TOUCHDOWN. THE FENCE WAS ABOUT A FOOT AND A HALF HIGHER THAN THE DIRT AND THE DIRT BANK WAS APRX AN EQUAL HEIGHT ABOVE THE RUNWAY. THE PLT HAD FLOWN THROUGH RAIN SHOWERS WHILE ENROUTE. HE REPORTED THAT HIS VERTICAL SPEED INDICATOR FLUCTUATED UNUSUALLY AND THE ALTIMETER WAS SLUGGISH. ON HIS APPROACH TO LAND THE PILOT REPORTED NOTICING THAT HE WAS LOWER THAN HE SHOULD HAVE BEEN. THE WEATHER WAS VMC BUT IT WAS A DARK NIGHT. ABOUT 75 FT SHORT OF THE RWY THRESHOLD THE ACFTS PROPELLER, FUSELAGE AND LANDING GEAR HIT AND KNOCKED DOWN PART OF A CHAIN LINK FENCE, INCLUDING A STEEL POST. THE LANDING GEAR COLLAPSED AND THE PROPELLER HIT THE DIRT BANK. THE ACFT BOUNCED AND LANDED ON THE BOTTOM OF THE FUSELAGE FT SHORT OF THE RWY. IT SLID DOWN THE RWY AND TO THE SIDE AN UNDETERMINED DISTANCE. (IT WAS MOVED PRIOR TO INVESTIGATION.) EXAMINATION OF THE PITOT STATIC SYSTEM REVEALED ABOUT 3 TABLESPOONSFUL OF WATER TRAPPED IN THE LINES.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL83LA204
- Event ID
- 20001214X42889
- Case number
- ATL83LA204
- 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 1983-05-29.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 2da6bdbcd51e01e420dc13776e4281703435c599f216ab92c3cfa6f0369a6daa; retrieved 2026-09-23T22:06:40.369Z.