MIA04LA050 · Mooney M20K
Mooney M20K · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Miami Executive Airport (TMB) to Punta Gorda Airport (PGD)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA04LA050
- 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
- N252WF
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Miami Executive Airport (TMB), Miami, FLTo Punta Gorda Airport (PGD), Punta Gorda, FL
- 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 · 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
- Total loss of engine power (mechanical failure)
- 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
- Fuel starvation
- 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
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, installation, improper
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated that the airplane was in cruise flight, at an altitude of 4,500 feet, when he detected a slight engine vibration. He noted that the fuel consumption had increased from the usual 12.5 gals/hr to 15.7 gals/hr, at 2,300 rpm and a manifold pressure of 30.00. Shortly thereafter he said the engine ceased operating. and he made a forced landing to the field. During the landing rollout the airplane incurred damage. An FAA airframe and powerplant mechanic with an inspection authorization rating, who responded to the scene of the accident stated that he found the B-nut on the inlet side of the fuel flow divider loose, about one full turn. In addition he said he saw signatures consistent with a leak which originated at the B-nut and ran down the right front of the engine case. Follow-on examination of the accident airplane revealed that at the connection of the B-nut on the fuel inlet line to the manifold, there was torque putty on the threaded connection on the manifold side, and no putty was observed on the B-nut. In addition, when conditions were recreated and the engine given a test run, when the electric fuel boost pump turned on, fuel leaked from around the B-nut. According to the airplane's engine log book, the engine had been rebuilt by Teledyne Continental Motors, and shipped to Mod Works Inc., Punta Gorda, Florida, who installed it in the accident airplane on March 03, 2003. At the time of the accident the engine had accumulated a total time of 80 hours since installation, and had received two previous oil changes, all of which had been performed by Mod Works Inc.
Probable cause
A loss of engine power due to the airplane mechanic's improper maintenance/installation and failure to ensure that the B-nut on the inlet side of the fuel manifold was properly tightened, which resulted in a fuel leak, and fuel starvation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA04LA050
- Event ID
- 20040206X00167
- Case number
- MIA04LA050
- 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: 28f9056499bab173ee7b8f5faca386815cd07b2c3f03471ecd737ef2443548ae; retrieved 2026-09-21T19:17:51.484Z.