ERA20LA082 · Mooney M20J
Mooney M20J · Accident: fuel exhaustion on approach
From Francis S Gabreski Airport (FOK) to Republic Airport (FRG)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA20LA082
- 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
- 0
- 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
- N52840
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Francis S Gabreski Airport (FOK), Westhampton Beach, NYTo Republic Airport (FRG), Farmingdale, NY
- Aircraft age
- About 31 years (built 1988)
- 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 final
- 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 exhaustion
- 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 as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot conducted a preflight inspection of the airplane prior to the first flight of the day but did not visually check the fuel quantity in the fuel tanks. He reported the engine data monitor indicated there was 20 gallons of fuel on board the airplane prior to takeoff. He flew to another airport and on the return flight, while on final approach, the air traffic controller requested the pilot make S-turns because the airport was busy. While on short final, the engine lost total power. The pilot switched fuel tanks and was unsuccessful in his attempts to restart the engine before impacting terrain about 1/2 mile from the runway.
Examination of the wreckage revealed that the right fuel tank remained intact; however, no fuel was present in the fuel tank. The left fuel tank was breached during the accident sequence, and no fuel was present in the tank. Multiple fuel lines were disconnected from the engine and residual fuel was present in the fuel manifold supply and the return lines from the fuel control to the fuel pump. All other lines were absent of fuel, including the fuel supply line from the airframe to the fuel pump. Furthermore, the pilot reported no preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation. It’s likely that the pilot’s improper preflight inspection and overreliance of the engine fuel monitor resulted in fuel exhaustion during final approach to landing.
Probable cause
The pilot’s improper preflight inspection, which resulted in fuel exhaustion and a total loss of engine power.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA20LA082
- Event ID
- 20200102X24851
- Case number
- ERA20LA082
- 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: 1d56cd3a1b0397769d7ad432f4c4ec45dad6e3d7d6f97ed31aa6f099d9fa78b7; retrieved 2026-09-16T10:51:15.843Z.