Mooney M20K N5772C

Summary

On 15 December 2000 at about 04:16 local time, a Mooney M20K registered N5772C was involved in an accident near Ogden, Utah, United States. One person was on board and one died. The aircraft was destroyed. The NTSB has published a probable cause for this accident; it is quoted in full below.

Date

15 December 2000 at 04:16

Classification

Accident

Location

Ogden, Utah, United States

Coordinates

Not recorded

Aircraft

Mooney M20K

Registration

N5772C

Category

Airplane

Engines

1

Operator

Not recorded

Operating rule

Part 91: General Aviation

Purpose of flight

Personal

Phase of flight

Not recorded

Route

Kansas City → Unknown

Aircraft damage

Destroyed

Weather

IMC

Light

Night/Dark

NTSB number

DEN01FA027

1 person died.

the pilot's inadvertent VFR flight into IMC, which resulted in a collision with mountainous terrain. Contributing factors were the blowing snow, turbulence, dark night light conditions, and pilot fatigue due to the long flight day.

Quoted verbatim from the NTSB record. This site does not paraphrase or interpret it.

Read the full NTSB narrative

During descent at the end of a dark night VFR cross country flight, the pilot reported that he had his destination in sight and cancelled flight following. Approximately 1 minute and 15 seconds later, the airplane, which was heading west, impacted the east side of a mountain ridge about 6 nautical miles short of the destination airport. The weather conditions in the accident area were high winds from the west with blowing snow. Additionally, moderate to severe turbulence was forecast below 10,000 feet. The pilot's total flight time on the day of the accident was 9 hours 39 minutes. During examination of the airplane wreckage, no pre-impact engine or airframe anomalies that might have affected the airplane's performance were identified.

Quoted verbatim from the NTSB record.