MIA02LA080 · Gary L. Zeigler Monnett Moni
Gary L. Zeigler Monnett Moni · Accident: partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical) during initial climb
From Gatlinburg-Pigeon Forge Airport (KGKT) to Unknown
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA02LA080
- 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
- 1 · 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
Gary L. Zeigler Monnett Moni
- Aircraft type
- Gary L Zeigler MONNETT MONI
- 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
- N10GZ
- Operator
- Phillip A. Walter · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Gatlinburg-Pigeon Forge Airport (KGKT), Sevierville, TNTo Unknown
- 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 (non-mechanical)
- 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
- Stall; 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Airspeed(vs), not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Before departure the pilot was observed to change the two spark plugs, and the airplane was fueled. During the takeoff, a witness heard the engine missing. Witnesses reported that when the airplane passed the departure end of the runway, the airplane was observed to bank to the left, pitch down, and impacted the ground in a wooded area. A postcrash fire was extinguished by a fire department. The crash site was located .10 nautical mile and 242 degrees from the departure end of the runway used for takeoff. Examination of the flight controls revealed no evidence of preimpact failure or malfunction. Examination of the engine by the FAA-IIC revealed that, "...both plugs were barely finger tight. I did not need a wrench to remove one of the plugs." No other discrepancies related to the engine were noted. The pilot's flight time in the airplane was not determined. Additionally, there were no maintenance records for the airplane.
Probable cause
The failure of the pilot to maintain airspeed while turning to reverse direction resulting in an inadvertent stall, uncontrolled descent, and in-flight collision with trees. A factor in the accident was the failure of the pilot to tighten the spark plugs resulting in the partial loss of engine power.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA02LA080
- Event ID
- 20020412X00501
- Case number
- MIA02LA080
- 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, coordinates. 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: 96a7a839210c112bffc7617933faac67153811bcd7a908ab2bab653c5f7b0c1b; retrieved 2026-09-20T20:06:58.397Z.