GAA17CA260 · Mooney M20 E
Smooth Blue Mooney M20 E · Accident: fuel starvation during takeoff
From Johnson County Executive Airport (OJC) to Manhattan Regional Airport (MHK)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA17CA260
- 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 M20 E
- 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
- N7118U
- Operator
- Smooth Blue
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Johnson County Executive Airport (OJC), Olathe, KSTo Manhattan Regional Airport (MHK), Manhattan, KS
- Aircraft age
- About 53 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
- Takeoff
- 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 starvation
- 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
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that, during the initial climb, about 1,000 ft above the ground, he "saw the engine power winding down." He added that he "turned on" the boost pump, checked the magnetos and fuel mixture, and then switched the fuel selector to the other fuel tank. The engine experienced a total loss of power and then impacted the ground. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the fuselage. The Federal Aviation Administration inspector reported that he traveled to the accident, and while on-site, he observed that the fuel selector knob set screw was loose and that the knob turned freely on the shaft. The set screw doesn’t keep the knob keyed; it just stops it from coming off. A roll pin keeps the shaft in position and was observed in the selector well. The pilot did not submit the National Transportation Safety Board Form 6120.1 Pilot/Operator Aircraft Accident/Incident Report.
Probable cause
The separated fuel tank selector knob roll pin, which prevented the fuel selector from moving to the fuel tank position for the tank with usable fuel and resulted in fuel starvation and the subsequent total loss of engine power.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA17CA260
- Event ID
- 20170504X14559
- Case number
- GAA17CA260
- 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: fd12c1a1c664f4a56a1764680a6fdc85263cd2682dcb709ae2e910c4521ea6a5; retrieved 2026-09-16T05:13:59.726Z.