CEN11FA340 · Mooney M20R
Mooney M20R · Accident: fuel starvation en route
From Akron Fulton International Airport (AKR) to Akron Fulton International Airport (AKR)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN11FA340
- 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 M20R
- 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
- N9149R
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Akron Fulton International Airport (AKR), Akron, OHTo Akron Fulton International Airport (AKR), Akron, OH
- 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
- 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
- Fuel starvation
- 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 › Fluids/miscellaneous hardware
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot and pilot-rated passenger reported that the airplane’s engine lost power while in level flight. The pilot reported that he switched fuel tanks and attempted two engine restarts to no avail. A forced landing was attempted, and the airplane’s right wing struck a tree at the edge of the field. Both the pilot and pilot-rated passenger reported that the flight began with about 70 gallons of fuel on-board. The pilot reported that about 60 gallons remained (30 gallons in each tank) when the power loss occurred. After the accident, the left wing fuel tank was nearly full, and about 40 gallons of the 44.5 gallons of usable fuel was drained from that tank. There was no fuel in the right tank because it was ruptured and the right wing separated. The fuel selector was found positioned to the right fuel tank. A subsequent examination of the airplane, including a thorough inspection of the airplane’s fuel system, was conducted and no pre-impact anomalies were found. A functional test of the engine was performed, and no defects in operation were noted. The most recent fueling of the airplane was performed during the airplane's annual inspection about 2 months prior to the accident when the airplane was filled with the maximum usable fuel. Based on fuel consumption figures obtained from the engine manufacturer the amount of time recorded on the hour meter, and the engine's performance during the postaccident engine run, it is likely that the fuel supply in the right wing fuel tank was exhausted, which led to the loss of engine power.
Probable cause
The pilot's improper fuel management, which resulted in a loss of engine power due to fuel starvation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN11FA340
- Event ID
- 20110517X04418
- Case number
- CEN11FA340
- 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, 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: 80bc36c4772c7205675534203f35c7f4131bab9b638701b8a6192a97d9291db0; retrieved 2026-09-15T16:10:20.700Z.