ERA23FA077 · Mooney M20J
Mooney M20J · Accident: collision during takeoff/landing on approach
From Westfield-Barnes Regional Airport (BAF) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA23FA077
- 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 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
- N3515H
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Westfield-Barnes Regional Airport (BAF), Westfield/Springfield, MATo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 42 years (built 1980)
- 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
- Collision during takeoff/landing
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Tree(s)
- 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 › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot-rated passenger described the sun as “blinding” during the landing approach, but stated that she and the pilot were uncomfortable landing on the other runway due to the wind conditions. While on final approach, the passenger adjusted the pilot’s sun visor, then looked down to confirm that the airplane was properly configured for landing. When she looked up, she knew that the airplane was going to impact trees. Examination of the wreckage revealed that the airplane impacted 75-ft-tall trees about 300 ft from the end of the runway, then subsequently impacted terrain. The passenger reported there were no mechanical malfunctions or anomalies that would have precluded normal operation. Review of published airport information revealed that trees were listed as an obstruction for both runways.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain clearance from trees during the landing approach. Contributing to the accident was the sun glare, which impaired the pilot's visibility and situational awareness.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA23FA077
- Event ID
- 20221203106405
- Case number
- ERA23FA077
- 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: 9b45185cc36b9e65af1315225facad61b39f7c14af189fdbeccba4e16b2a92bd; retrieved 2026-09-15T07:54:46.737Z.