NYC01LA057 · Mooney M-20J
Mooney M-20J · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Trenton Mercer Airport (TTN) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC01LA057
- 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-20J
- 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
- N201MP
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Trenton Mercer Airport (TTN), Trenton, 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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(cfi) › In-flight planning/decision, improper
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Trenton, NJ, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
With a fight instructor, the pilot executed a normal takeoff from Runway 34 for right closed traffic. Because a UH-60 helicopter was executing an approach from the southwest to the threshold of Runway 34, the pilot extend the touchdown point by 1,000 feet. The helicopter transitioned to hovering flight near the threshold, about 30 seconds before the accident airplane. After a short delay, the UH-60 air-taxied to the ramp. When the accident airplane was about 20 feet above the ground, it suddenly rolled right, (faster than a full application of aileron could counteract,) and the right wing contacted the ground. Witness statements place the UH-60, 100 to 600 feet away from the accident airplane at the time of the accident. According to the Aeronautical Information Manual, every aircraft generates vortices, that can cause an uncommanded roll that exceeds the roll-control authority of the encountering airplane. Landing helicopters produce a pair of strong, high-speed trailing vortices similar to larger fixed wing aircraft. Pilots of small aircraft should use caution when operating behind landing helicopters.
Probable cause
The flight instructor's improper decision to allow his student to land in close proximity to a hovering helicopter.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC01LA057
- Event ID
- 20010109X00067
- Case number
- NYC01LA057
- 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: c4119309d37929b8c68c219e03e5b09be1c9564aee877235a376736787e33ff9; retrieved 2026-09-22T12:17:28.797Z.