DFW06FA110 · Mooney M20K
Mooney M20K · Accident: loss of engine power en route
From Golden Triangle Regional Airport (GTR) to Eppley Airfield (OMA)
Event
- NTSB case
- DFW06FA110
- 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
- 1 · 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
- N231GE
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Golden Triangle Regional Airport (GTR), Columbus, MSTo Eppley Airfield (OMA), Omaha, NE
- 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 · climb to 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
- 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
- Tree(s)
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Shortly after the single-engine airplane departed Runway 36, (a 6,497-foot-long by 150-foot-wide asphalt runway), the 2,410-hour commercial pilot informed air traffic control that the airplane's engine had experienced a "total power failure" and that he would be returning to the airport. The pilot elected to fly back across a four lane highway and an open field in an attempt to reach the airport. The airplane's right wing impacted a large oak tree, approximately 4,054 short of the runway. The airplane subsequently impacted the ground before coming to rest in an inverted position. There was no post impact fire and all major components of the airplane were accounted for at the accident site. During the investigation it was revealed that the pilot had experienced a partial loss of engine power on his previous flight; a 585-nautical mile cross-country flight. After landing the pilot instructed an airframe and powerplant mechanic to perform a visual inspection of the engine in order to look for abnormalities. No anomalies were noted. The pilot then elected to return on the 585-nautical mile cross-country flight before having the engine further examined. The accident occurred while the pilot was initiating his return flight. An examination of the airframe, engine, and related components did not reveal any abnormalities that would have prevented normal operation. The reason for the reported loss of engine power could not be determined.
Probable cause
The loss of engine power for undetermined reasons. A contributing factor was the pilot's improper decision to forgo suitable forced landing opportunities in an attempt to return to the airport.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DFW06FA110
- Event ID
- 20060501X00492
- Case number
- DFW06FA110
- 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: d443f3ad2d8d9e2aeb7246cc04efb177f9b8dc3e7995e2e4574f97fb0f5cd65d; retrieved 2026-09-20T17:23:52.580Z.