ERA16FA208 · Mooney M20E
Mooney M20E · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Harris County Airport (PIM) to Collegedale Municipal Airport (FGU)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA16FA208
- 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
- 3 · 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 M20E
- 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
- N7830V
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Harris County Airport (PIM), Pine Mountain, GATo Collegedale Municipal Airport (FGU), Collegedale, TN
- Aircraft age
- About 52 years (built 1964)
- 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
- Approach · VFR go-around
- 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
At the end of the second leg of a cross-country flight, the private pilot made an approach to runway 3 at the destination airport and subsequently performed a go-around. A flight instructor, who was about 3 miles from the airport and preparing to land on runway 21 did not hear any radio communications from the accident pilot. He observed the airplane in a climbing left turn near the departure end of runway 3, about 80 to 100 ft above the ground. The airplane then made a steep 45° to 60° bank to the right, with a nose-high attitude. As it progressed through the turn, the airplane's nose dropped, and it began a slow 270° rotation at a high descent rate. The airplane impacted the ground and came to rest upright on a grass area adjacent to the east side of runway 3.
Data from an onboard GPS confirmed the flight path described by the flight instructor and showed that the airplane's groundspeed was about 74 mph during the right turn. The airplane owner's manual indicated that the airplane's stall speed in a 60° bank varied from 90 to 96 mph indicated airspeed depending on flap setting.
Examination of the airframe and engine did not reveal evidence of any preimpact mechanical malfunctions that would have precluded normal operation. Based on witness information and recorded GPS data, it is likely that the pilot failed to maintain airspeed while maneuvering after the go-around, which resulted in an exceedance of the airplane's critical angle of attack, an aerodynamic stall, and subsequent loss of control.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain adequate airspeed and his exceedance of the airplane's critical angle of attack while maneuvering after a go-around, which resulted in an aerodynamic stall.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA16FA208
- Event ID
- 20160611X45600
- Case number
- ERA16FA208
- 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: 2fb91d941c6b63ab8fc3180bef0352d7cb74422329a858c24b3d93d5abb30b10; retrieved 2026-09-14T21:49:52.579Z.