CEN13LA370 · Mooney M20J
Mooney M20J · Accident: loss of engine power (total) on approach
From Wiley Post Airport (PWA) to Wiley Post Airport (PWA)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN13LA370
- 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
- 0
- 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
- N205MC
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Wiley Post Airport (PWA), Bethany, OKTo Wiley Post Airport (PWA), Bethany, OK
- 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
- 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 engine power (total)
- 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 power plant
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated that the engine abruptly lost power while he was practicing instrument approaches under visual flight rules. His efforts to restore engine power were unsuccessful. The pilot subsequently executed a forced landing to the center median of a roadway. A postaccident examination revealed that the dual magneto assembly was not functioning properly. Although the magneto drive shaft operated during engine crankshaft rotation, the magneto points did not open as required. A teardown examination revealed that the magneto components were worn. In addition, the threaded inserts had lifted out of the mounting block. The magneto assembly was inspected less than 1 flight hour before the accident during an engine propeller strike inspection, and the magneto block, points, and cam were replaced at that time. The accident flight was the second flight since the inspection and maintenance work had been performed. Although the magneto points might have been misaligned due to the threaded insert lifting out of the mounting block, it is unlikely that such a discrepancy would have resulted in a loss of magneto function within such a short timeframe. The magneto failure caused the loss of engine power; however, the cause of the magneto failure could not be determined.
Probable cause
A loss of engine power, which resulted from the failure of the magneto assembly for reasons that could not be determined during postaccident examinations.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN13LA370
- Event ID
- 20130625X42613
- Case number
- CEN13LA370
- 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: 492547370758562e1ff96e0b235b573d6e41c92b78a914ab4ed56d114ab428f3; retrieved 2026-09-15T21:59:56.698Z.