CEN19FA078 · Mooney M20K
Mooney M20K · Accident: VFR encounter with IMC en route
From El Paso International Airport (ELP) to West Houston Airport (IWS)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN19FA078
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Mooney M20K
- 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
- N56359
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From El Paso International Airport (ELP), El Paso, TXTo West Houston Airport (IWS), Houston, TX
- Aircraft age
- About 36 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
- En route
- 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
- VFR encounter with IMC
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Psychological
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The non-instrument-rated private pilot received a weather briefing before departing on the visual flight rules (VFR) cross-country flight, which included the presence of moderate to heavy precipitation, including some thunderstorms, near the destination airport. The pilot was advised that VFR flight was not recommended and that he should seek additional weather information as he neared his destination. Weather observations and satellite imagery indicated that instrument meteorological conditions (IMC) prevailed in the vicinity of where the pilot began making multiple course changes and at the accident site. It is likely that the pilot encountered rain, possibly heavy rain, during the final portion of the flight. Weather observations near the destination airports, AIRMETs, and visible satellite weather images all indicated that the pilot encountered IMC en route. Examinations of the airframe and engine did not reveal any anomalies consistent with a preimpact failure or malfunction. The restricted visibility conditions present in the area were conducive to the development of spatial disorientation, and the airplane's maneuvering and spiraling descent are consistent with the known effects of spatial disorientation. It is likely that the pilot experienced spatial disorientation during an encounter with instrument meteorological conditions, which resulted in a loss of control.
Probable cause
The noninstrument-rated pilot's decision to continue visual flight into an area of instrument meteorological conditions (IMC), which resulted in a loss of control due to spatial disorientation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN19FA078
- Event ID
- 20190131X82219
- Case number
- CEN19FA078
- 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, cause areas. 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: 5f3feccd67d520aeba54e6db45a91ce041de6ed02cb7b217e5533f57690af9c7; retrieved 2026-09-15T06:53:42.947Z.