LAX06CA050 · Mooney M20A
Mooney M20A · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Double Eagle II Airport (AEG) to Inyokern Airport (IYK)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX06CA050
- 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 M20A
- 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
- N6004X
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Double Eagle II Airport (AEG), Albuquerque, NMTo Inyokern Airport (IYK), Inyokern, CA
- 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 (non-mechanical)
- 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
- Pilot in command › Fuel consumption calculations, inadequate
- Pilot in command › In-flight 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 made a hard landing on a road after losing engine power. The flight was the return leg of a long cross-country from Kansas, that included an intermediate refueling stop in New Mexico. The pilot departed the intermediate airport with 49 gallons of fuel on board and thought he had enough fuel to make it to his destination. As the flight neared the destination airport the pilot reported to the TRACON controller that he had a low fuel state. The controller suggested a closer alternate airport. While attempting to land at the alternate airport, the pilot encountered adverse weather conditions including turbulence and crosswinds that exceeded the capabilities of the airplane. He decided instead to make a forced landing on a winding and undulating road. The engine lost power at this point and the pilot switched fuel tanks. The engine restarted for about 20 seconds and then lost power again. The pilot was unable to see the rising road in the darkness and did not perform a flare. The airplane landed hard and came to rest in between the road and a ditch.
Probable cause
fuel exhaustion due to the pilot's inadequate in-flight planning and fuel consumption calculations.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX06CA050
- Event ID
- 20051229X02029
- Case number
- LAX06CA050
- 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: local date, investigation status, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2005-12-02.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 5232f686e53dcc54404bad38cd18d5e998ddadb5b4f3a828882c126abf5ce9aa; retrieved 2026-09-21T18:51:23.152Z.