GAA18CA059 · Mooney M20 E
Mooney M20 E · Accident: fuel starvation during takeoff
From Ryan Field (RYN) to Ryan Field (RYN)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA18CA059
- 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
- N6002Q
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Ryan Field (RYN), Tucson, AZTo Ryan Field (RYN), Tucson, AZ
- Aircraft age
- About 51 years (built 1966)
- 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 › Fluids/miscellaneous hardware
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that, during the preflight inspection, in preparation for the local flight to accomplish three touch-and-go landings, he removed the fuel filler caps and visually confirmed what appeared to be an adequate amount of fuel in each tank. The pilot did not use the fuel dip stick to confirm the quantity.
The pilot reported that the fuel selector was selected to the right-side fuel tank before departure. After the second takeoff, about 600 ft above ground level (agl) and just before turning crosswind, the engine surged once or twice and then experienced a total loss of engine power. The pilot checked the engine controls and turned left back toward the runway. About 300 ft agl, he switched the fuel selector to the left fuel tank. Seconds later, the engine regained power; however, the airplane had descended low enough that the airplane collided with the tops of mesquite brush and then the ground.
Postaccident examination of the airplane revealed that the right fuel tank was empty and that the left fuel tank contained about 10 gallons of fuel. There was no evidence of a breach or fuel leak.
The fuselage was substantially damaged.
The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot’s inadequate preflight and in-flight fuel management, which resulted in an intermittent loss of engine power due to fuel starvation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA18CA059
- Event ID
- 20171126X04640
- Case number
- GAA18CA059
- 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: 36a599dbb47cf694adcc9ed8cb82f5c7b82423391294988dfbb7ea433673bdea; retrieved 2026-09-16T06:01:54.575Z.