SEA04LA124 · Mooney M20R
Mooney M20R · Accident: loss of control in flight during landing
From Salt Lake City International Airport (SLC) to Friedman Memorial Airport (SUN)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA04LA124
- 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 M20R
- 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
- N1054K
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Salt Lake City International Airport (SLC), Salt Lake City, UTTo Friedman Memorial Airport (SUN), Hailey, 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 · 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 › Directional control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Flare, improper
- Pilot in command › Remedial action, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
As the airplane crossed the threshold the pilot pulled the power back to idle, but as his landing gear touched the runway the airplane suddenly bounced twice. The pilot attempted to abort the landing by adding full power, raising the flaps, and retracting the landing gear, but the plane would not accelerate or climb. The airplane stayed in ground effect, weaving back and forth, then exited the runway to the right before impacting a taxiway sign with its left wing. The airplane subsequently swung around to the left, coming to rest in an upright position facing west. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the left wing root area and main spar. Reported wind at the time of the accident was 270 degrees at 8 knots.
Probable cause
The pilot's improper flare, failure to maintain directional control, and inadequate remedial action, which resulted in the airplane impacting a taxiway sign along the side of the runway. A factor contributing to the accident was the taxiway sign.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA04LA124
- Event ID
- 20040722X01028
- Case number
- SEA04LA124
- 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: 788c6506ae7419958408f9afb905f3b1d379db5ab70ac9bb14d3414707ddb327; retrieved 2026-09-22T07:09:05.142Z.