ERA20LA033 · Mooney M20J
Mooney M20J · Accident: loss of engine power (total) on approach
From Gainesville Regional Airport (GNV) to Northeast Florida Regional Airport (SGJ)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA20LA033
- 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
- N5765H
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Gainesville Regional Airport (GNV), Gainesville, FLTo Northeast Florida Regional Airport (SGJ), St. Augustine, FL
- Aircraft age
- About 35 years (built 1984)
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern base
- 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 engine power (total)
- 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
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
After an annual inspection was completed, the pilot was repositioning his airplane back to his home airport, which was about 1 hour away from the airport where the inspection was performed. During approach to his home airport, while on an extended base leg of the traffic pattern, the engine began to surge for several seconds, followed by a total loss of engine power. The pilot verified that the fuel boost pump was on, the mixture was in the full-rich position, and the fuel selector was positioned to the correct fuel tank. He then attempted to glide the airplane to the airport, but the airplane impacted brackish water about 1 mile short of the runway.
Examination of the wreckage at the site revealed that the fuel selector was positioned to the right main fuel tank; about 20 gallons of 100-low-lead aviation gasoline was drained from the right tank. Water was drained from the left main fuel tank. The water had a smell of fuel, but no fuel was observed in the left tank. The engine was subsequently examined at a recovery facility and no preimpact mechanical malfunctions were identified. Due to corrosion, the magnetos and fuel pump could not be tested. Based on the available information, the reason for the loss of engine power could not be determined.
Probable cause
A total loss of engine power for undetermined reasons.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA20LA033
- Event ID
- 20191111X84900
- Case number
- ERA20LA033
- 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: 956c887aad972276622f6da3e89aaca85e938ba5e8d589e3b6d8c2a053f5c6a0; retrieved 2026-09-16T10:36:04.579Z.