DEN08LA041 · Mooney M20C
Mooney M20C · Accident: partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From York Municipal Airport (JYR) to Las Vegas Municipal Airport (LVS)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN08LA041
- 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 M20C
- 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
- N63LH
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From York Municipal Airport (JYR), York, NETo Las Vegas Municipal Airport (LVS), Las Vegas, 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
- 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
- Partial 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
- 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
- Fuel system, carburetor › Contamination
- Fuel system, filter › Blocked(total)
- Fuel system, line › Blocked(partial)
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane was in cruise flight in VFR conditions at 8,500 feet msl when there was a "sudden loss of engine rpm." Vectors were given to the nearest airport approximately 8 miles away. Unable to glide to the airport, the pilot attempted to land in a snow-covered field using what little moonlight there was available. The airplane collided with trees and terrain and caught fire. Post-accident examination revealed no engine anomalies. Disassembly of the carburetor revealed a brown gooey substance in the inlet fuel screen and float valve, restricting movement of the latter. FTIR analysis of the substance by NTSB's materials laboratory revealed it to be "most likely an inorganic compound." EDS analysis of the various samples revealed high peaks of carbon, while other samples had high peaks of sulfur, and still others high peaks of calcium silicon. The laboratory report noted that when aviation gasoline evaporates, various additives, such as anti-knock compounds, dyes, inhibitors and anti-icing compounds, remain in the form of a gum.
Probable cause
Total loss of engine power due to contamination of the carburetor, total blockage of the fuel inlet screen, and partial blockage of the fuel lines and fittings. Contributing to the accident were the dark night light conditions and the trees.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN08LA041
- Event ID
- 20071226X01986
- Case number
- DEN08LA041
- 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. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2007-12-16.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 28d26b8b9fd41889a8d219224ee1aa540acb1bab1b87ab9f10e07098f15f6714; retrieved 2026-09-21T08:41:07.233Z.