WPR24LA305 · Mooney M20F
Mooney M20F · Accident: abrupt maneuver en route
From Phoenix Deer Valley Airport (KDVT) to an unrecorded destination
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's fatalities. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR24LA305
- 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 Possible conflict
- 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 M20F
- 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
- N9628M
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Phoenix Deer Valley Airport (KDVT), Phoenix, AZTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 58 years (built 1966)
- 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
- Abrupt maneuver
- 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
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was on final approach to the destination airport. Witnesses observed the airplane flying at a low altitude and heard the engine operating as it maneuvered toward the airport. The airplane appeared to encounter a flock of about 20 birds that rose from a dead tree about 35 ft above the ground. The airplane pitched up and turned left, consistent with the pilot attempting an evasive maneuver to avoid the birds. The airplane collided with a tree and residence. The pilot succumbed to his injuries and could not be interviewed. No bird DNA or feather fragments were detected in samples taken from the airplane. Although no physical evidence of a bird strike was identified, witness observations indicated that the pilot maneuvered to avoid birds that had risen into the airplane’s flight path. Witnesses observed the airplane flying at a low altitude as it approached the airport. The pilot likely did not have sufficient altitude to recover from the evasive maneuver before the airplane collided with a tree.
Probable cause
The pilot’s evasive maneuver to avoid birds while on final approach at a low altitude, which resulted in the airplane colliding with a tree.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR24LA305
- Event ID
- 20240916195129
- Case number
- WPR24LA305
- 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, coordinates, 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: e06b1ce06adf29b13377527bfef3e14eecf47d67a09c80268d64739de60f3182; retrieved 2026-09-16T19:16:29.124Z.