SEA03LA003 · Mooney M20K
Mooney M20K · Accident: on ground/water collision with object during landing
From Rexburg Madison County Airport (RXE) to Rexburg Madison County Airport (RXE)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA03LA003
- 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
- N231EH
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Rexburg Madison County Airport (RXE), Driggs, IDTo Rexburg Madison County Airport (RXE), Rexburg, ID
- 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
- Landing · landing roll
- 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
- On ground/water collision with object
- 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 › Go-around, not performed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot entered a left downwind for Runway 17 with the intention of making a full stop landing on the 4,200 foot strip. He reportedly touched down on the runway numbers, but inadvertently allowed the aircraft to balloon back into the air. After a few seconds, the aircraft touched down a second time, but then ballooned even higher. According to the pilot, when the aircraft touched down the third time, he "...added some power to stay on the ground." This resulted in the aircraft lifting off the runway for a third time. After the aircraft settled on the surface for the fourth and final time, the pilot concluded that he would not be able to stop before reaching the fence located just off the south end of the runway. At that point he decided to add full power in an attempt to clear the fence and complete the landing roll in the area beyond it. Although he got the aircraft off the ground, the landing gear caught on the fence and pulled the aircraft to the ground. Soon thereafter, the left wing collided with a tree and the aircraft came to rest. According to the pilot, there was no evidence of any malfunction of the flight control system or the engine. He also stated that during the entire landing sequence, including during the time he attempted to "clear the fence," the wing flaps were in the fully deployed (down) position. In his narrative report, he also stated that he has now learned to execute a go-around if the wheels are not firmly planted by the time the aircraft reaches the second VASI (Visual Approach Slope Indicator).
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to perform a go-around once it became evident that his remedial action was not adequate to overcome the porpoise/pilot-induced oscillation that occurred during the landing flare. Factors include the pilot's inadvertent repeated ballooning/porpoising during the landing sequence, and a fence and line of trees off the departure end of the runway.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA03LA003
- Event ID
- 20021021X05351
- Case number
- SEA03LA003
- 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: 534c9f297c13dfe451a662597d28785abb4a262c93316704d60b4d7755536a52; retrieved 2026-09-22T10:05:43.227Z.