ERA12CA348 · Mooney M20C
Mooney M20C · Accident: fuel exhaustion on approach
From Athens Ben Epps Airport (AHN) to North Perry Airport (HWO)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA12CA348
- 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
- N2610W
- Operator
- Mcconnell William R
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Athens Ben Epps Airport (AHN), Athens, GATo North Perry Airport (HWO), Pembroke Pines, FL
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern downwind
- 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 exhaustion
- 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
- Personnel issues › Task performance
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 reported that the airplane had flown about 4 hours, 25 minutes, including two takeoffs and climbs, since its last fueling. When the airplane was about 3 miles from the destination airport at 1,200 feet above ground level, the engine lost all power. The fuel selector was positioned to the left main fuel tank when the power loss occurred. The pilot moved the selector to the right main fuel tank, but the engine did not regain power. The pilot then performed a forced landing to a road. During the landing, he veered left to avoid an automobile and the left wing impacted a median. The airplane spun 180 degrees and came to rest upright. Postaccident examination of the wreckage revealed no evidence of mechanical malfunctions or failure that would have precluded normal operation; however, there was impact-related damage to both wings. The left main fuel tank was intact and did not contain any fuel. Although the top of the right main fuel tank had been compromised, there was no evidence that fuel had leaked from that tank. About 1/2 gallon of fuel was found in the right main fuel tank.
Probable cause
The pilot's improper fuel management, which resulted in a total loss of engine power during approach due to fuel exhaustion.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA12CA348
- Event ID
- 20120521X01010
- Case number
- ERA12CA348
- 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: c1436110548ab6f3f37097489a63626f4007873cffd1750412aee79492e3b190; retrieved 2026-09-15T18:11:37.423Z.