ATL02LA103 · Mooney M20J
Mooney M20J · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Charleston International Airport (KCHS) to Charleston International Airport (CHS)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL02LA103
- 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 M20J
- 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
- N4560H
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Charleston International Airport (KCHS), Charleston AFB, SCTo Charleston International Airport (CHS), Charleston, SC
- 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
- En route · climb to cruise
- 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
- Total 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
- Wire, transmission
- 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
- Lubricating system › Starvation
- Powerplant › Seized
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During climb through 3300 feet mean sea level, the engine lost power. During emergency landing on a road, the airplane struck a power line, then collided with the ground inverted. The underside of the fuselage and empennage was found heavily coated with and streaming engine oil. Examination of the engine found the number 1 connecting rod detached. The number 2 and 3 connecting rods exhibited heat discoloration and lack of lubrication. Bearing material was extruded, the connection rods were separated, and both were found in multiple pieces. The number 4 connecting rod remained attached, and the bearing showed early signs of heat discoloration and lack of lubrication. The connecting rod separations exhibited overload signatures, and there were no signs of fatigue. Maintenance records indicate an annual inspection was completed on December 14, 2001, at an engine time of 595 hours since major overhaul, and the engine accumulated 70 hours since inspection. The engine received a propeller strike inspection on February 8, 2000, and the engine was disassembled, repaired, and reassembled. The engine time for the propeller strike repairs was not recorded in the maintenance log.
Probable cause
Total loss of engine power due to oil system starvation. A factor was the transmission wire encountered during emergency descent.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL02LA103
- Event ID
- 20020530X00766
- Case number
- ATL02LA103
- 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: 054df3e729c4ec4bc4b5ccd450df59d483c90f253a53e77f298db1eb1b110adf; retrieved 2026-09-21T19:43:38.594Z.