CHI04FA045 · Mooney 20E
Mooney 20E · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water while maneuvering
From Voyager Village Airstrip (9WN2) to Crystal Airport (MIC)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI04FA045
- 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
- 2 · 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 20E
- Aircraft type
- Mooney 20
- 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
- N1275X
- Operator
- Peter C. Naab · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Voyager Village Airstrip (9WN2), Webster, WITo Crystal Airport (MIC), Minneapolis, MN
- 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
- Maneuvering
- 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
- In flight collision with terrain/water
- 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 › Altitude/clearance, not maintained
- Pilot in command › 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 airplane was destroyed while maneuvering at low altitude when it impacted an ice covered lake in a steep nose down attitude. One witness reported that he observed the pilot preflight and start the airplane. He reported that the airplane sounded "okay" during taxi and takeoff. Witnesses to the accident reported seeing the airplane flying low over the lake. One witness stated the airplane's altitude was between 60 - 100 feet above ground level (agl). The witnesses reported seeing the airplane enter a steep climb to about 300 feet agl. Then the airplane reversed direction and entered a steep descent and impacted the ice. One witness reported the airplane "went straight up in the air about 200 feet, made a hairpin turn, and came straight down, hitting the ice nose first." The engine, landing gear, and cockpit of the cabin broke through the ice and remained submerged. The wings and the rest of the fuselage were intact and remained on top of the ice. The post accident inspection of the airplane revealed no preexisting anomalies that could be associated with a pre-impact condition. One witness reported that it was common for the pilot to do low passes and maneuver at low altitude. Another witness reported that it was not uncommon for the pilot to perform "crop duster turns" at low altitudes.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate decision to conduct a low altitude flight maneuver without sufficient altitude to maintain clearance from the terrain. Low altitude flight and ostentatious display are contributing factors.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI04FA045
- Event ID
- 20040113X00056
- Case number
- CHI04FA045
- 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: 9c89ff81775b6ccbfbc47e0016e65aaa6dfc6f109279878be0f3cf5d95545504; retrieved 2026-09-20T18:41:53.611Z.