CEN09CA414 · Mooney M20
Mooney M20 · Accident: aerodynamic stall/spin during takeoff
From Steamboat Springs Bob Adams Field (KSBS) to Centennial Airport (KAPA)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN09CA414
- 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 M20
- 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
- N270SD
- Operator
- Wayne Lemley
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Steamboat Springs Bob Adams Field (KSBS), Steamboat Springs, COTo Centennial Airport (KAPA), 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
- Takeoff
- 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
- Aerodynamic stall/spin
- 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
Prior to departing on a 108-nautical-mile cross-country flight, the private pilot reported that he remained in the traffic pattern for one touch-and-go landing. The airplane was flown at a slower than normal speed on the downwind and base legs. The airplane crossed 30 feet above the runway "numbers" at 67 to 68 knots. The pilot reduced engine power for the landing and the airplane stalled at approximately 7 to 10 feet above the runway. After experiencing a hard landing, the airplane bounced back into the air and the pilot elected to perform a go-around. The pilot selected full power and pulled back on the yoke to avoid nosewheel contact with the runway. The pilot reported that the airplane became airborne, but he was at a slower than normal airspeed. At approximately 10 to 20 feet above the runway, the airplane entered a second stall, rolled left and impacted terrain. The airplane was substantially damaged. The pilot and two passengers were not injured. No preimpact anomalies were detected during a postaccident inspection.
Probable cause
The pilot's improper pitch control during the go-around, which resulted in an aerodynamic stall.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN09CA414
- Event ID
- 20090707X13323
- Case number
- CEN09CA414
- 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: a1680dc3eee2c1cb5a7422cb0806b670e6560d11d102679514fa818dc0e01843; retrieved 2026-09-15T11:42:43.597Z.