ERA13LA374 · Mooney M20J
Mooney M20J · Accident: loss of control in flight during takeoff
From Marco Island Executive Airport (MKY) to Wing South Airpark (FA37)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA13LA374
- 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
- N3700H
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Marco Island Executive Airport (MKY), Marco Island, FLTo Wing South Airpark (FA37), Naples, 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
- Takeoff
- 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 in flight
- 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
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated that he set the flaps at 15 degrees for takeoff and that the flap position indicator and the adjacent pitch trim position indicator appeared to "line up," which was normal. However, during the takeoff, the airplane pitched up more rapidly than normal, and the pitch trim did not seem to be working. The event occurred too quickly for the pilot to abort the takeoff, and, because of the relatively low airspeed and the high engine torque and P-factor, he was unable to counteract the airplane's left turning tendency. The airplane subsequently descended into a swamp left of the runway.
At the accident scene, the airplane's flap and trim position annunciators indicated that the flaps were in the "takeoff" position but that the pitch trim was in the "up" position; the Pilot's Operating Handbook stated that the pitch trim was to be set to the "takeoff" position for takeoff. For pitch trim control, the airplane's entire empennage would have pivoted to increase or decrease the horizontal stabilizer angle. The system used a worm gear, which would have prevented the annunciated trim position from moving when the airplane impacted the ground. Pitch trim was subsequently tested electrically to the stops with no binding noted. The pilot did not report any runaway pitch anomalies.
Probable cause
The pilot’s improper pitch trim setting before takeoff, which resulted in the airplane’s rapid, nose-high pitch at takeoff and the pilot’s subsequent loss of control.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA13LA374
- Event ID
- 20130826X25737
- Case number
- ERA13LA374
- 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: 0fb221a71220866e5fbdc100fdd56410d047457d74e346bb90062271c32cdce3; retrieved 2026-09-15T22:37:11.364Z.