DEN04CA120 · Mooney M20J
Mooney M20J · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Windy Plains Airport (5CO0) to Albuquerque International Sunport (ABQ)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's departure or destination. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN04CA120
- 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 M20J
- 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
- N6212Q
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route Possible conflict
- From Windy Plains Airport (5CO0), Durango, COTo Albuquerque International Sunport (ABQ), Albuquerque, NM
- 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 pattern final
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Compensation for wind conditions, 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 pilot reported that on final from a visual approach, at approximately 300 feet above ground level, the airplane began to sink rapidly. The pilot said he applied full power, and barely cleared a drop-off on the approach end of the runway. He also said that the stall warning horn was sounding. The pilot said the right wing dropped, and the airplane contacted the runway and veered to the right, coming to rest off the right edge of the runway. In his statement to a Federal Aviation Administration inspector, the pilot said he encountered a downdraft, applied power, but didn't have enough altitude to recover. An examination of the accident scene showed the airplane struck the south side of a service road located 24 feet from the approach end of the runway causing substantial damage to the right wing, right main landing gear, and fuselage. The airplane then veered across the approach end of the runway and came to rest off the right side. Flight control continuity was confirmed. An examination of the engine and other airplane systems revealed no anomalies. Approximately 30 minutes following the accident, the Aviation Routine Weather Report for Durango/La Plata County Airport, (DRO) 7 nautical miles southeast of the accident scene, was winds 340 degrees at 10 knots, clear skies, 10 statute miles visibility, temperature 82 degrees Fahrenheit (F), dew point 35 degrees F, altimeter 30.27 inches, and remarks, peak wind 330 degrees at 32 knots, occurring approximately 3 minutes before the accident. The remarks also included lightning and thunderstorms northeast, south, and southwest of DRO.
Probable cause
the pilot's inadequate compensation for wind conditions and his failure to maintain adequate airspeed resulting in a stall. Factors contributing to the accident were the wind gusts, the downdraft, and the road.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN04CA120
- Event ID
- 20040908X01359
- Case number
- DEN04CA120
- 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: dd234cdf113bf7d66476cdaee9b5e3a37b64ad75d1b53d8f87b5636e91152584; retrieved 2026-09-21T19:10:22.559Z.