WPR14FA320 · Mooney M20L
Mooney M20L · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From San Bernardino International Airport (SBD) to Montgomery-Gibbs Executive Airport (MYF)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR14FA320
- 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
- 1 · 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 M20L
- 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
- N147MP
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From San Bernardino International Airport (SBD), San Bernardino, CATo Montgomery-Gibbs Executive Airport (MYF), San Diego, CA
- Aircraft age
- About 26 years (built 1988)
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated that after the airplane bounced on landing, she aborted the landing by adding full power and confirmed that the flaps were in the takeoff position. She further stated that when she realized that the airplane was not climbing normally and that the engine did not seem to be providing full power, she prepared for an emergency landing to a parking lot between two large retail buildings. The airplane impacted a rooftop air conditioning unit on one of the buildings, collided with the roof's perimeter cinderblock barrier, and then fell to the ground.
A witness, who was a pilot, reported that he observed the airplane flying low over the runway in a nose-high attitude, and, when it crossed the departure end of the runway, it was only about 25 ft above the runway approach lighting. The witness stated that he observed the airplane continue to fly low in a nose-high attitude, and he did not think it was going to clear the trees in its flight path. He further stated that just before reaching the trees, the airplane's nose pitched up abruptly into a very nose-high attitude, and the airplane climbed about 100 to 200 ft, cleared the trees, but then stopped climbing. According to the witness, "it looked like it stalled, followed by the left wing dipping." The witness added that the airplane then descended in a nose-high, left-wing-low attitude and went out of sight behind a building.
Postaccident examination of the airframe and engine revealed no evidence of mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation. The landing gear was found extended, which would have resulted in reduced climb performance. The airplane's pilot operating handbook states that the landing gear is to be retracted during a go-around procedure. The airplane's initial nose-high attitude (before the abrupt pitch-up) also likely reduced climb performance. It is likely that the pilot recognized that the airplane was entering an aerodynamic stall during the steep climb over the trees, lowered the nose, gained airspeed, and averted a spin. However, at this point, there was insufficient altitude to fully recover from the stall and stop the airplane's descent before it impacted the building.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to achieve climb performance and maintain sufficient airspeed during a go-around, which led to the airplane exceeding its critical angle of attack and experiencing an aerodynamic stall. Contributing to the accident was the pilot's failure to retract the landing gear in accordance with the go-around checklist.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR14FA320
- Event ID
- 20140731X02420
- Case number
- WPR14FA320
- 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 2014-07-31.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 1ba3815a69c7e1eeab33286b5c84ec60a7fd55c5267eaf8012e7d6cd86439380; retrieved 2026-09-14T17:22:49.206Z.