WPR23LA023 · Mooney M20E
Mooney M20E · Accident: loss of control on ground during takeoff
From an unrecorded airport to Henderson Executive Airport (HND)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR23LA023
- 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
- Event fatalities
- Unknown
- 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 M20E
- 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
- N6031Q
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Henderson Executive Airport (HND), Henderson, NV
- Aircraft age
- About 57 years (built 1965)
- 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
- 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
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that during the takeoff roll he noticed a vibration, and a possible loss of power, and the airplane veered to the left off the narrow (35 ft) runway when he decided to abort the takeoff. He therefore aborted the takeoff and subsequently the airplane impacted a dirt berm and came to rest in a ditch.
Postaccident examination of the engine revealed no evidence of mechanical failures or malfunctions that would have precluded normal operation. The engine was run at various power settings with no anomalies noted. The pilot subsequently stated that he had since flown in another Mooney after the accident and, having experienced the effect of a rough surface on the landing gear, that the vibrations were likely an effect of the rough runway surface on the nose gear.
Probable cause
The pilot’s loss of directional control during a takeoff from a rough, narrow runway, resulting in an aborted takeoff and subsequent runway excursion.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR23LA023
- Event ID
- 20221024106182
- Case number
- WPR23LA023
- 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: 3095c6f1655cfc96e994943216862f370f64fe4439cccb3558705eb6ada00108; retrieved 2026-09-16T16:18:52.203Z.