ERA13CA172 · Mooney M20J
Mooney M20J · Accident: loss of control on ground during landing
From Springfield Robertson County Airport (M91) to Springfield Robertson County Airport (M91)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA13CA172
- 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 M20J
- 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
- N3545H
- Operator
- Robert Waite
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Springfield Robertson County Airport (M91), Springfield, TNTo Springfield Robertson County Airport (M91), Springfield, TN
- 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
- Landing · flare/touchdown
- 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 on ground
- 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 › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the pilot, and as corroborated by the pilot-rated passenger, the pilot first completed two touch-and-go landings with wind at 14 knots, gusting to 22 knots directly down the runway. The pilot then attempted a third landing and, approaching the touchdown point, the airplane yawed 30 to 45 degrees to the right, then back to the left of centerline. It subsequently rolled to the left, the left wing tip impacted the ground, and the pilot added full power. The airplane continued to the left, the pilot reduced power, and the airplane settled into the grass. It then skidded across a ramp and impacted a hangar and a fuel pump. Photographs revealed substantial damage to the outboard leading edge of the left wing and a left-arcing runway scrape mark toward the hangar. The pilot reported no preexisting mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain airplane control while landing in gusting wind conditions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA13CA172
- Event ID
- 20130316X03243
- Case number
- ERA13CA172
- 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: aa67af7575506d9e9c6048a2b41459939c57ae017e5d1ad119bda81d0b4b20ea; retrieved 2026-09-15T21:06:36.233Z.