WPR15LA209 · Mooney M 20G
Mooney M 20G · Accident: fuel related during landing
From Phoenix Deer Valley Airport (DVT) to Phoenix Deer Valley Airport (DVT)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR15LA209
- 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 M 20G
- Aircraft type
- Mooney M-20
- 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
- N9152V
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Phoenix Deer Valley Airport (DVT), Phoenix, AZTo Phoenix Deer Valley Airport (DVT), Phoenix, AZ
- Aircraft age
- About 46 years (built 1969)
- 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
- 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
- Fuel related
- 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 systems
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The private pilot receiving instruction reported that, abeam the runway threshold on the downwind leg of the traffic pattern, he reduced engine power to idle to conduct a practice 180o power-off landing. The pilot maintained glide speed until about 40 ft above the ground then noticed that the airplane was slightly below the intended glide path. The pilot applied throttle to initiate a go-around; however, the engine sputtered and power did not increase. The pilot executed a forced landing short of the runway; the airplane touched down hard and bounced. The right main and nose landing gear collapsed, and the airplane came to rest to the right of the runway. The flight instructor reported that, upon the pilot's decision to conduct a go-around, he ensured that the throttle, propeller, and mixture were in the correct position, but made no reference to carburetor heat.
During a postaccident examination, the engine was started, operated, and shut down normally with no anomalies noted. Data from the engine monitoring system revealed that, shortly before the engine lost power, it was operating at idle power for about 1 1/2 minutes, during which the cylinder exhaust gas temperatures were decreasing. At the end of the 1 1/2 minutes, in the engine rpm increased and the the exhaust gas temperatures showed a small spike, then continued to decrease. The rpm then decreased to zero, and the manifold pressure adjusted to barometric pressure, consistent with a total loss of power.
The reported temperature and dew point at the time of the accident were conducive to carburetor icing at glide and cruise power settings. It is likely that the carburetor collected ice during the time the engine was at idle power. When the pilot increased power, the engine responded momentarily, but was unable to continue operation with the restricted airflow through the carburetor. The airplane's pilot operating handbook stated that full carburetor heat should be applied when reducing power for descent or landing.
Probable cause
The pilots' failure to apply carburetor heat during the approach for landing, which resulted in a total loss of engine power due to carburetor icing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR15LA209
- Event ID
- 20150710X82210
- Case number
- WPR15LA209
- 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, coordinates. 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: 3839198707a0d4214f00eb69504c77093712bde8c4f5dbc9ff4d7384d95aa55b; retrieved 2026-09-16T02:31:13.420Z.