LAX04LA028 · Mooney M20K
Mooney M20K · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From St Johns Industrial Air Park (KSJN) to Montgomery-Gibbs Executive Airport (KMYF)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX04LA028
- 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
- Instrument 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
- N1147N
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From St Johns Industrial Air Park (KSJN), St. Johns, AZTo Montgomery-Gibbs Executive Airport (KMYF), San Diego, CA
- 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
- Approach · VFR go-around
- 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
- 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 obtained/maintained
- Pilot in command › Gear retraction, not performed
- Pilot in command › Procedures/directives, not followed
- Pilot in command › Propeller, not set
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane landed hard on a highway while attempting to perform a go-around from runway 28R. The pilot received a preflight weather briefing from 1120 to 1131 and was advised he could not file IFR into the destination airport due to the closure of the TRACON and the airport ATCT due to a major forest fire threatening the facilities. He was advised he "might be able to get in VFR." He filed IFR to an intersection located in the vicinity of his destination airport. Once the flight arrived in the general destination area, the pilot canceled his IFR clearance and flew visually to the airport. After attempting to land runway 28R, he applied power for a go-around. He retracted the flaps but left the landing gear down, and did not put the propeller control in the full forward position. As the pilot maneuvered during the go-around he turned into a tailwind situation and the airplane was unable to maintain a climb. The airplane descended to impact on a highway. A post crash fire erupted and consumed the airplane. The POH for the airplane states that the propeller control should be at a high rpm during landing. For a go-around procedure, the POH indicates that the pilot should apply power, retract the flaps to the takeoff position [10 degrees], and then retract the landing gear and remaining flaps once the airplane accelerates to 91 mph (77 knots) IAS. A post-accident inspection revealed that the propeller governor control arm was 3/8-inch from the low pitch stop. A METAR was issued at 1414 that noted the wind was from 070 degrees at 6 knots, gusting to 14 knots. No discrepancies were found duirng an examination of the engine.
Probable cause
the pilot's failure to configure the airplane properly for the go-around which resulted in degraded climb performance, and his failure to maintain adequate airspeed which resulted in a stall. The tailwind was a contributing factor.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX04LA028
- Event ID
- 20031028X01819
- Case number
- LAX04LA028
- 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: 87a9c0f6cc0b4abc72500a63e1d10e58e22d5679d559769a8c80d0beaf5da85e; retrieved 2026-09-22T08:16:26.050Z.