CHI01LA310 · Mooney M20K
Mooney M20K · Accident: in flight collision with object during initial climb
From Arnold Field (55G) to Coleman A. Young Municipal Airport (DET)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI01LA310
- 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
- Unknown
- 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
- N252YX
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Arnold Field (55G), Croswell, MITo Coleman A. Young Municipal Airport (DET), Detroit, MI
- 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
- In flight collision with object
- 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
- Pole; Tree(s)
- 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
- Pilot in command › Aborted takeoff, not performed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane impacted a pole, trees, and terrain after takeoff. The pilot said in a written statement, "I began the takeoff at the extreme end of [runway] 25 (there was a little down hill start). As I applied throttle I didn't notice the turbo charger kick in and wrote it off to the bumpy grass field. Acceleration seemed a little sluggish but again attributed it to the grass field and being close to maximum gross weight (I normally fly out of Detroit City; this was my fourth departure from Arnold Field and my first from runway 25). About 2/3 of the way down the runway I realized that there was a serious performance problem. I rotated at a little over 60 knots and the wheels cleared the grass; I presumed the plane would then perform since I wouldn't have the retarding effect of the grass. Looking up I could see power lines above me and realized that I would not clear them. The plane continued to under perform; I pulled up on the yoke and the stall warning went off. I lowered the nose and looked for a place I might get under the power lines and over the trees. It was clear that that wouldn't happen and I lowered the nose and tried to aim for a thin spot in the tree line. The right wing clipped a phone pole and we crashed through the trees, over the road and came to rest in a freshly plowed field." A postaccident examination of the airplane revealed no anomalies that could be associated with a pre-impact condition. The airplane's engine was test run on the airframe. The engine ran from idle to a power setting of 34 inches of manifold pressure. Power was not increased beyond 34 inches due to safety concerns during the test. During the test run, the magneto's were checked and the propeller was cycled. No anomalies were noted during the test run. FAA publication "THE SAFE PILOT'S 12 GOLDEN RULES - FAA-P-8740-7" states, "9. TAKEOFF/LANDING LIMITS -- Plan ahead . . . (a) Always plan touchdown 200 feet inside of runway threshold. (b) Abort takeoff if not solidly "airborne" in first 1/2 of runway. (c) Abort landing if not solidly "on" in first 1/3 of runway. (First 1/4 if wet grass.) (d) Never relax control until engine is shut down and wheels are blocked."
Probable cause
The pilots failure to abort the takeoff. Factors were the pole and the trees.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI01LA310
- Event ID
- 20010910X01906
- Case number
- CHI01LA310
- 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: aed7d5842c288706b23493fc336efe6a051fb54e4e7042c01c3fd7afaaae6a12; retrieved 2026-09-22T11:35:32.273Z.