CEN19FA032 · Mooney M20C
Mooney M20C · Accident
From Phoenix Goodyear Airport (GYR) to Colorado Plains Regional Airport (AKO)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN19FA032
- 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
- 1 · 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 M20C
- 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
- N113TA
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Phoenix Goodyear Airport (GYR), Goodyear, AZTo Colorado Plains Regional Airport (AKO), Akron, CO
- Aircraft age
- About 52 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
- Unknown
- 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
- Unknown or undetermined
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The private pilot departed on a cross-country flight which continued into night visual meteorological conditions across sparsely-populated terrain. The destination airport was located about 600 nautical miles (nm) northeast of the departure airport; however, the airplane impacted terrain almost 5 hours after takeoff near an airport about 330 nm east-northeast of the departure airport and about 120 nm east-southeast of a direct course between the departure and destination airports. The airplane's route of flight could not be determined; however, the location of the accident site suggests that the pilot had become lost at some point during the flight. Investigators were not able to determine what, if any route of flight planning was conducted by the pilot prior to the flight.
A witness near the accident site saw the airplane flying over the airport with "no lights whatsoever." His perception was that the pilot was not trying to land, but may have been trying to attract the attention of the tower controller. The landing gear and wing flaps appeared to be retracted, and the engine was running smoothly.
The airplane impacted a ravine about 1/3-mile south of the airport and was destroyed by impact forces and a postimpact fire. Postaccident airframe and engine examinations did not reveal any anomalies consistent with a preimpact failure or malfunction; however, portions of the airplane were damaged by the postimpact fire to the extent that a complete examination of some airplane systems, such as the electrical system, were not possible. The airplane did not have a current annual inspection, nor had the pilot requested a ferry permit for the flight.
Based on the available information, the reason the pilot was circling the airport and the airplane's subsequent impact with terrain could not be determined. It is likely the pilot became lost at some point during the flight and the airplane was likely near its fuel endurance limit at the time of the accident. The pilot may have been trying to orient himself by circling the airport or was attempting to alert the tower controller before setting up for a landing. However, the investigation was unable to determine whether a loss of control preceded the impact with terrain or whether the pilot became low on a landing approach.
Probable cause
Collision with terrain for reasons that could not be determined based on the available information. Contributing to the accident was the pilot's poor preflight planning and poor decision to depart on the accident flight.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN19FA032
- Event ID
- 20181126X35126
- Case number
- CEN19FA032
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2018-11-27.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 66d12459907c4637fe72c12d4f8f0c05f210c94f4312412ece7d3773ea6587bb; retrieved 2026-09-15T06:51:20.753Z.