CHI05LA138 · Mooney M20K
Mooney M20K · Accident: loss of engine power on approach
From McGhee Tyson Airport (TYS) to Kansas City International Airport (MCI)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI05LA138
- 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
- N231HX
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From McGhee Tyson Airport (TYS), Knoxville, TNTo Kansas City International Airport (MCI), Kansas City, MO
- 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 downwind
- 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 engine power
- 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 exhaustion
- 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
- Fluid, fuel › Exhaustion
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane was substantially damaged during a forced landing following a loss of engine power. The pilot reported that the airplane fuel tanks were filled prior to the flight and that the fuel burn during the flight was between 11 and 11.3 gallons per hour, which agrees with data obtained from the Pilot Operating Handbook (POH). The duration of the flight was about 3 hours and 47 minutes. The POH listed the airplane fuel capacity was 72 gallons of useable fuel. The pilot further stated that he alternated burning fuel from each tank during the flight and that he had noticed that the fuel quantity indication did not agree with what he had expected. He stated that for between 30 and 45 minutes he had been planning for alternate airports due to weather and fuel concerns. While burning fuel from the left fuel tank, the engine lost power and the pilot switched to the right fuel tank. The engine re-started and the pilot diverted to an airport about 5 to 6 miles away. The pilot stated that he circled to lose altitude and executed an approach to the runway. He stated that when he turned onto final approach he realized that he was too high and executed a go-around. He reported that the engine again lost power as he was turning onto the downwind leg of the traffic pattern. During the off-airport landing the airplane impacted the ground in a wings level attitude with the landing gear extended. The pilot stated that, although he closed the gascolator fuel drain from within the cockpit, he believed that the fuel drain remained open allowing approximately 30 gallons of fuel to be lost during the flight. The preflight checklist procedures specify draining the gascolator prior to the external airplane examination. According to the airplane manufacturer, a leaking gascolator drain should be detectable during the external examination.
Probable cause
The pilot's delay in diverting to an alternate destination due to low fuel indications which led to the fuel exhaustion, loss of engine power and the subsequent forced landing. Factors were the pilot's improper preflight inspection which resulted in an undetected fuel drain leak and his misjudged glidepath during the precautionary landing which led to a go-around and the subsequent fuel exhaustion.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI05LA138
- Event ID
- 20051026X01732
- Case number
- CHI05LA138
- 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. 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: 73ab379fb8663c7aea2cb59eef4bd0963c7b7c3026ffa4501f7a1856ef2ad44f; retrieved 2026-09-21T09:06:31.524Z.