CEN13CA190 · Mooney M20E
Mooney M20E · Accident: fuel exhaustion while maneuvering
From Middletown, OH to Middletown, OH
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN13CA190
- 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 M20E
- 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
- N199Q
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Middletown, OHTo Middletown, 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
- 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
- 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 › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Physical
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the pilot, during an approach to land, he attempted to activate the runway lights via the push-to-talk radio switch in the cockpit; however, the lights would not activate. While continuing to fly for about 2 hours attempting to locate another airport, the airplane ran out of fuel, and the pilot executed a forced landing. During the forced landing, the airplane impacted power lines and brush covered terrain. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the fuselage and both wings. Examination of the airplane did not reveal any preaccident mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation. During the flight, the pilot entered class C and class D airspace and instrument meteorological conditions without clearance. The pilot did not hold a current medical certificate or flight review, and the airplane's annual inspection was not current. The pilot admitted to emergency first responders that he had been consuming alcohol before the flight.
Probable cause
The total loss of engine power due to fuel exhaustion, which resulted from the noncurrent pilot’s improper in-flight fuel management and decision-making and his decision to conduct the flight after consuming alcohol.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN13CA190
- Event ID
- 20130312X22449
- Case number
- CEN13CA190
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2013-03-12.
- API snapshot SHA-256: a72edba9a81ddc046c1a4f5ea39b098066149ac4a8537b41ed3cadf1092dc078; retrieved 2026-09-15T21:03:56.198Z.