ERA15LA190 · Mooney M20C
Mooney M20C · Accident: aircraft loading event before flight
From Winchester Municipal Airport (BGF) to Winchester Municipal Airport (BGF)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA15LA190
- 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 M20C
- 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
- N9680M
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Winchester Municipal Airport (BGF), Winchester, TNTo Winchester Municipal Airport (BGF), Winchester, TN
- Aircraft age
- About 48 years (built 1967)
- 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
- Prior to flight
- 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
- Aircraft loading event
- 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
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The private pilot attempted to take off in a four-seat airplane with five adults onboard. A witness reported that the airplane lifted off about halfway down the 5,002-ft-long runway and momentarily climbed, then "suddenly dropped" and impacted terrain at the end of the runway. Review of weight and balance information indicated that the airplane was loaded at least 290 lbs above its maximum gross weight of 2,575 lbs. Had the airplane been loaded within limits, it could have taken off and cleared a 50-ft obstacle within a distance about 1,700 ft. Examination of the wreckage did not reveal evidence of any preimpact mechanical malfunctions. It is likely that the airplane's performance was significantly reduced given its gross weight, and that the pilot exceeded the critical angle of attack during the initial climb, which resulted in an aerodynamic stall.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate weight and balance and performance planning, including his decision to take off with more passengers than permitted, and his exceedance of the airplane’s critical angle of attack during the initial climb, which resulted in an aerodynamic stall and impact with terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA15LA190
- Event ID
- 20150420X64153
- Case number
- ERA15LA190
- 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: 50ce9227929491091331ba26edda4ff31602865001e8a24bfd96a0ebc2bb173e; retrieved 2026-09-16T02:14:36.409Z.