LAX82FUJ27 · Mooney M20J
Afro Venture Mooney M20J · Accident: loss of control in flight en route
From Phoenix, AZ to Las Vegas, NV
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX82FUJ27
- 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
- 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 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
- N11578
- Operator
- Afro Venture
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Phoenix, AZTo Las Vegas, NV
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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/spin
- 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 › Airspeed, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Stall/spin, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT PICKED UP THE NEW AIRCRAFT FROM THE FACTORY AT KERRVILLE, TEXAS ON THE DAY OF THE ACCIDENT. HE WAS FERRYING THE PLANE TO HIS HOME IN NEW JERSEY BY WAY OF LAS VEGAS, NEVADA. HE DECLINED AN OFFER TO BE CHECKED OUT IN THE PLANE AND DEPARTED KERRVILLE AT ABOUT 1700 CST. ABOUT FIVE HOURS LATER, HE LANDED AT PHOENIX, ARIZONA AND REFUELED. HE DEPARTED PHOENIX AT ABOUT 2212 ON A MOONLESS NIGHT. DURING DEPARTURE FROM THE STAGE III TRSA, THE RADIO COMMUNICATIONS WERE NORMAL UNTIL RADAR SERVICE WAS TERMINATED AT 2217 MST. AT 2220 MST, THE PLANE CRASHED ABOUT SEVEN MILES FROM THE DEPARTURE POINT. A NON-RATED WITNESS WITH ABOUT 35 HOURS FLIGHT TRAINING REPORTED THAT THE PLANE CRASHED WHILE IN A SPIN. THE WITNESS ALSO REPORTED THAT THE ENGINE CONTINUED TO OPERATE UNTIL IMPACT. RADAR TRACK DATA VERIFIED THAT THE GROUND SPEED SLOWED FROM 111 KNOTS TO THE SEVENTIES WITH EXCURSIONS TO THE SIXTIES BEFORE A RAPID DESCENT. THE AIRCRAFT IMPACTED WITH LITTLE OR NO FORWARD MOVEMENT. AN ENGINE TEARDOWN SHOWED NO FAILURE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX82FUJ27
- Event ID
- 20020917X02297
- Case number
- LAX82FUJ27
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (5)
- 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 1982-02-04.
- API snapshot SHA-256: c504dbba021162fb29bc6c0fd3ca66b2d5036ccd3ef6187239ce5ccd561ea8ac; retrieved 2026-09-21T08:38:00.863Z.
- Corrected after a review of the NTSB narrative, which states these values explicitly: departure. The narrative states "HE LANDED AT PHOENIX, ARIZONA AND REFUELED. HE DEPARTED PHOENIX AT ABOUT 2212"; the record showed the crash location, Paradise Valley, AZ, as the departure.