ERA16LA126 · Mooney M20 C
Mooney M20 C · Accident: fuel contamination during initial climb
From Heritage Field (PTW) to Wings Field (LOM)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA16LA126
- 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 M20 C
- 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
- N242TS
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Heritage Field (PTW), Pottstown, PATo Wings Field (LOM), Philadelphia, PA
- Aircraft age
- About 54 years (built 1962)
- 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
- Fuel contamination
- 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 › Fluids/miscellaneous hardware
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The accident flight was the airplane’s first since its annual inspection, which had just been completed. According to the pilot, because the airplane had just undergone an annual inspection, he completed a thorough preflight inspection, including checking and draining fuel from the fuel sumps. The pilot stated that, after the preflight, he then started the engine and completed two runups before taxiing to the runway for takeoff.
According to witnesses and the pilot, the airplane’s takeoff was normal. The pilot reported that everything appeared to be normal until reaching 300 to 400 ft above ground level (agl), when the engine suddenly stopped producing power. A witness reported hearing the engine "cut out" then "surge." The witness also stated that the airplane began a right turn about 300 ft agl and appeared to stop climbing at this point while the turn appeared to become steeper. The pilot stated that he knew he would not be able to safely return to the airport and veered the aircraft to the right to avoid any property or people who might have been straight ahead, aiming for the grassy area just to north side of the runway, where the airplane struck the ground and came to rest.
Examination of the airplane and engine revealed no evidence of any preimpact failures or malfunctions that would have precluded normal operation. However, examination of the fuel system revealed the presence of water in the fuel system and carburetor float bowl, which likely caused the engine power loss.
The mechanic who performed the airplane’s most recent annual inspection reported completing several static power engine runups the day before the accident; the engine produced power during each runup, and he did not note any abnormalities. He stated that the airplane had been at the airport for about 2 weeks before the accident flight and was subject to several heavy rain events during that period. He also stated that the airplane had not been refueled since it had arrived at the airport for maintenance. Review of fuel provider records from the location of the airplane’s last known refueling did not reveal any evidence of contamination of the fuel provider’s fuel supply.
The owner’s airplane manual stated that the fuel sumps should be drained as part of the preflight inspection. It is likely that the pilot rushed or did not perform the preflight, as water was discovered in the fuel system.
Probable cause
The pilot’s inadequate preflight inspection, which resulted in a total loss of engine power due to fuel contamination and a subsequent off-airport landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA16LA126
- Event ID
- 20160310X20925
- Case number
- ERA16LA126
- 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: 1f81915f15f0250ac8d102e9656c77467a8cae3b752b525c4c8fe6b2c22912ea; retrieved 2026-09-16T03:12:47.611Z.