GAA17CA535 · Mooney M20J
Mooney M20J · Accident: hard landing
From West Georgia Regional Airport / O V Gray Field (CTJ) to Lyons Landing Airport (5GA2)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA17CA535
- 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 M20J
- 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
- N1161Z
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From West Georgia Regional Airport / O V Gray Field (CTJ), Carrollton, GATo Lyons Landing Airport (5GA2), Whitesburg, GA
- Aircraft age
- About 34 years (built 1983)
- 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
- Hard landing
- 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 pilot reported that, during the approach to land on a down-sloped, grass runway, the airplane was "a little high." He added that he attempted to land short of a rise in the runway, which resulted in a hard landing followed by a bounce. After the airplane settled back on the runway, "[he] believed we [the airplane] could still stop in time." He applied the brakes, but the airplane failed to slow, and he attempted to skid the airplane sideways "with little effect." As the airplane went over another rise in the runway, it floated off the ground. Subsequently, the airplane came to rest in the trees beyond the end of the runway.
The airplane sustained substantial damage to both wings.
The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical failures or malfunctions with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
The pilot reported that the weather at the accident site, about the time of the accident, was wind from 105°, gusting to 10 to 15 knots. The pilot landed on runway 27.
An automated weather observation system about 13 nautical miles from the accident site reported, about the time of the accident, the wind was from 070° at 8 knots.
Probable cause
The pilot’s unstabilized approach while landing with a tailwind and his subsequent failure to go around, which resulted in a hard landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA17CA535
- Event ID
- 20170911X13303
- Case number
- GAA17CA535
- 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: 8d5b8e61ac2eaf1aeacd2049ecc481720ecb01bb8b5a0379758c6284fa308049; retrieved 2026-09-16T05:49:10.184Z.