CEN09FA147 · Mooney M20C
Alpha Aviation Mooney M20C · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Centennial Airport (APA) to Centennial Airport (APA)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN09FA147
- 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 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
- N7774M
- Operator
- Alpha Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Centennial Airport (APA), Denver, COTo Centennial Airport (APA), Denver, CO
- 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
- Maneuvering
- Defining eventThe 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 control in flight
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
A local resident found the airplane wreckage in a ravine located between two pastures and alerted authorities. The airplane rested over a crater, with the forward fuselage and cabin broken but with the engine still attached to the fuselage. Ground impact marks were consistent with a left-wing-low and nose-down impact. Examination of the airplane, engine, and other systems showed no preimpact anomalies. An analysis of the airplane's radar track showed it conducting several back-and-forth maneuvers before disappearing from radar. Just prior to the loss of radar contact, the airplane appeared to be in a gentle right-hand turn at 7,900 feet mean sea level (about 1,300 feet above ground level) with a groundspeed of approximately 50 knots. The accident flight profile was consistent with a pilot proficiency flight and the maneuver preceding the crash that of practicing slow-flight maneuvering.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain adequate airspeed while maneuvering, which resulted in an aerodynamic stall and subsequent loss of control.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN09FA147
- Event ID
- 20090201X24429
- Case number
- CEN09FA147
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
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: 70f75037586e3aed7a4cd347f3078ac04e6a5df19992d6a3cd94e49e176bddf6; retrieved 2026-09-13T19:56:31.948Z.