GAA18CA511 · Mooney M20J
Mooney M20J · Accident: loss of control on ground during takeoff
From Skyhaven Airport (DAW) to Skyhaven Airport (DAW)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA18CA511
- 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
- N201BS
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Skyhaven Airport (DAW), Rochester, NHTo Skyhaven Airport (DAW), Rochester, NH
- Aircraft age
- About 36 years (built 1982)
- 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 · rejected 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
- Loss of control on ground
- 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
The pilot-rated owner reported that he was allowing another pilot to build time in his airplane to qualify for the airplane's insurance. During the accident flight, the pilot occupied the left seat, and the owner occupied the right seat. During takeoff after a touch-and-go landing, the pilot rotated a bit early, and the airplane settled back onto the runway. He aborted the takeoff, applied heavy braking, and the airplane fishtailed and then veered left. The owner took the flight controls, but the airplane exited left of the runway and impacted a ditch.
The pilot reported that, during the familiarization flight to practice touch-and-go landings, on the second takeoff, he aborted the takeoff because he realized that he did not have enough runway available. He applied heavy braking, and the airplane veered left into a swamp.
The owner added that he was sitting in the right seat and that the right seat position does not have brakes. He believed that his "inexperience at controlling the airplane from the right seat" also contributed to the accident.
The airplane sustained substantial damage to the right wing.
The owner reported that there were no preaccident mechanical failures or malfunctions with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain directional control during takeoff.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA18CA511
- Event ID
- 20180826X91929
- Case number
- GAA18CA511
- 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: 2c3c8fe7327e59848171c76a02a3d277d88b2643b4aedc87dfcebbce65315655; retrieved 2026-09-16T08:09:43.656Z.