DFW06FA193 · Mooney M20J
Mooney M20J · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From McComb-Pike County Airport / John E Lewis Field (MCB) to East Texas Regional Airport (GGG)
Event
- NTSB case
- DFW06FA193
- 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
- 2 · 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
- Instrument 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
- N577RS
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From McComb-Pike County Airport / John E Lewis Field (MCB), McComb, MSTo East Texas Regional Airport (GGG), Longview, TX
- 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
- In flight encounter with weather
- 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
- Pilot in command › Flight into known adverse weather, continued
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The single-engine airplane impacted into a cotton field following a loss of control during an in-flight encounter with a thunderstorm while on a 228-nautical mile night cross country flight. The 1,295-hour instrument rated flight instructor and student pilot were fatally injured. The flight originated under visual flight rules (VFR). While airborne the pilot observed lightning in the distance and called a Flight Service Station, via the radio, inquiring if there were any weather radar returns between their present position and their intended destination. The flight specialist responded that there was some scattered thunderstorm activity along their route and suggested the pilot deviate north in an attempt to avoid them. The flight specialist further informed the pilot of an AIRMET in effect for Instrument Flight Rules (IFR) along their route of flight, with VFR flight not recommended, and that their destination airport was reporting a broken ceiling at 600-feet above ground level (AGL). The pilot acknowledged, filed, and activated an IFR flight plan to their destination via a northern route. The pilot was in communications with two Air Route Traffic Control Centers (ARTCC) during the flight. A review of ARTCC communications with the accident airplane revealed that the pilot was not provided with any weather advisories nor was he advised of the radar-depicted weather displayed on the controller's scope. According to recorded display system information, adverse weather was located along the accident airplane's flight path. The airplane entered the depicted weather while at 8,000-feet. About 19 seconds later, radar contact was lost while the accident airplane was at 4,400-feet. The airplane came to rest in an upright position. There was no post crash fire. The fuselage was found crushed downward in a manner consistent with a near vertical flat impact. The horizontal stabilizer had failed in positive (upward) while the one piece wing was found separated mid span, having failed in negative (downward). The examination revealed no pre impact anomalies with the airplane's controls or engine.
Probable cause
The pilot's continued flight into adverse weather conditions. Contributing factors were the prevailing thunderstorms, the dark night conditions, and Air Traffic Control's failure to issue hazardous weather information to the pilot.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DFW06FA193
- Event ID
- 20060731X01061
- Case number
- DFW06FA193
- 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 2006-07-27.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 92a6d6e94a766996704eac27a6c41adfe0c7af6fa99feccb15998c9a0b11e414; retrieved 2026-09-20T17:07:36.501Z.