DEN03LA086 · Mooney M20K
Mooney M20K · Accident: loss of control in flight during landing
From Scottsdale Airport (SDL) to City of Colorado Springs Municipal Airport (COS)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN03LA086
- 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
- N231JM
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Scottsdale Airport (SDL), Scottsdale, AZTo City of Colorado Springs Municipal Airport (COS), Colorado Sprngs, CO
- 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 · flare/touchdown
- 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
- 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 › Aircraft control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The local METAR reported the winds at 130 degrees at 12 knots. The tower controller advised the pilot he could have the runway of his choice because the winds were variable. The pilot elected to land on runway 35R. When the pilot was on final approach, the controller advised the winds were variable between 080 and 090 degrees at 15 knots. During the flare, the airplane encountered two wind gusts from the right. The first gust pushed the aircraft to the left side of the runway. The pilot added power to go around. The second gust pushed the airplane further left and off the runway. The engine was developing full power and the airplane was accelerating, but it would not climb. He felt something "clip" the airplane, causing it to veer left. The pilot then reduced power, shut off the fuel, and attempted to stop the airplane. The airplane traveled across rough terrain, struck a stop sign on the service road between the runway and a taxiway, then struck a 10-foot chain link perimeter fence, collapsing the landing gear. The airplane came to rest 1/3-mile northwest from the runway.
Probable cause
the pilot's improper decision to land in the reported crosswind conditions, and his failure to maintain aircraft control. Contributing factors were the crosswind, rough terrain, airport stop sign, and fence.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN03LA086
- Event ID
- 20030603X00774
- Case number
- DEN03LA086
- 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: local date, investigation status, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2003-05-24.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 2712c244a95e40e2b2a406bfd2a618f3507fbd18cb377cae1e0304bf6ec0bd13; retrieved 2026-09-21T19:28:57.043Z.