Mooney Down in San Diego

[kmyfm20s]

Looks like it was piloted by a female pilot and she had a female passenger. So far sounds like one survived and went to the hospital but by looks of it very hard landing. The pilot is being credited with exceptional skill and judgment with crash landing. The plane registration is N147MP with an Ovation paint job. Witnesses say it lost power on takeoff.

[kmyfm20s]

http://www.thekathrynreport.com/2014/07/mooney-m20l-n147mp-accident-occurred.html

[Marauder]

It's listed as a Porsche model (an L) with the FAA.

[scottfromiowa]

Realy sorry to hear this. My thughts are with the pilot and family of passenger...

[bonal]

Damn, this sucks. Prayers to the family's glad no one on the ground was hurt.

[NotarPilot]

I can't help but wonder if the steel roll cage contributed to the survivability of this crash.

[Alan Fox]

This sucks......My airport is in a rural area , I always try to take off in the direction that has fields off the end....  I am always a little nervous climbing out in urban areas .....Looks like she did everything right , and still got screwed.....How lucky to be greeted with a dozen or more people with extinguishers.....

[rbridges]

This sucks......My airport is in a rural area , I always try to take off in the direction that has fields off the end....  I am always a little nervous climbing out in urban areas .....Looks like she did everything right , and still got screwed.....How lucky to be greeted with a dozen or more people with extinguishers.....

 

the area looks very congested in the pics.  the pilot was stuck between a rock and a hard place from the beginning.  

[ArtVandelay]

I can't help but wonder if the steel roll cage contributed to the survivability of this crash.

But it always seems it's the fire that is the killer, I wonder if fuel bladders would help in the regard?

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[Hank]

With the amount of damage to the right wing, there's just no way to contain the fuel. A bladder would have torn, probably in several places.

 

Fuel was probably pumped out of torn hoses and shattered injectors in the engine, too.

[PTK]

Another one??! I've lost count.

 

Here we go again. (let me copy/paste)

 

May the departed rest in peace. Prayers to the families they leave behind. Rapid recovery to the injured.

[IndyTim]

This sucks......My airport is in a rural area , I always try to take off in the direction that has fields off the end....  I am always a little nervous climbing out in urban areas .....Looks like she did everything right , and still got screwed.....How lucky to be greeted with a dozen or more people with extinguishers.....

 

According to the FAA, she bounced the landing first, then crashed after.  She was trying to execute a go-around and couldn't gain altitude so sounds like she did not configure correctly.  Could have been one of several things - maybe she was still leaned out, and/or full flaps, and/or slow prop.  

 

Sounds like she had her mother on board  - that's very sad.

[IndyTim]

It's hard to tell from this picture, but it doesn't look like the flaps are down.

 

[Houman]

Wow, so sad to hear, I almost bought an L model with a Porch engine but my mechanic strongly advised me not to do so, since the engine was produced in low numbers and parts are hard to find.

 

Bounced landings are not fun especially on hot scorching days, I remember my scariest time as a student-pilot was when I had about 25h or 30h flight time and doing solo pattern practice on a very hot day at about 1 pm, took me 3 times to get my landings right, the 2 prior balked landings were rough and thank god the school's C172 forgives much more than our speed birds !!!

 

My thoughts are with the family, it's rough to have specially 2 family members in the same accident, hope the injured person gets better soon !

[Seth]

Here's to a recovery for her and thoughts to the family for the deceased.

 

I've flown out of Montgomery Field in San Diego - During my cross the country trek in 2013 in the Missile, and during a sightseeing trip after renting an airplane in 2006 (Piper PA-28) from one of the flight schools on the field.

 

Great location for convenience, but hard for engine outs.   Miramar is just to the North, and there are highways all around, but that low losing power - pick a spot, even if there isn't one, and put her down.

 

-Seth

[Buster1]

Prayers. This has not been a good month for aviation...

[Ftlausa]

With the stress of her bounced landing, I too wonder too if she reconfigured.  I failed to retract flaps in a balked landing in a 172 during an early training solo flight and I was sweating bullets on the non-climb out I experienced.  Could not gain much altitude and then had settling when I retracted first notch of flaps.  Valuable lesson.     

[IndyTim]

Pretty dramatic.  I'm moved by the commitment and effectiveness (not to mention the bravery) of everyone who pulled the pilot and pax from the plane.

 

http://www.10news.com/news/watch-good-samaritan-pulls-passenger-from-burning-plane-07302014

[PMcClure]

I heard her calls to the tower this morning on the Today show. Both the pilot and controller were very stressed. She said she was not making full power. God bless everyone involved. 

 

Even with fuel and 2 people and configured for landing, I would expect the 550 could climb. On bounced landings, it is unnerving to apply all that power close to the ground. The P factor is significant and as recently discussed, trim is critical or you can get a major pitch up force. But she didn't look like she was in a stall and spin? And a witness said she was gliding and hit a light pole before landing. Witnesses also reported the engine was making strange noises. She was extremely lucky or skillfully put her down where she would do the least damage with the most chance for survival. 

[PMcClure]

PS - that is not much fire for 75-100 gallons of fuel. 

[flyboy0681]

This is getting depressing.

[Alan Fox]

From the look of the pic , gear up and flaps down....You can see the flap position of the flaps up against the fairing below the door , it is sitting level so gear probably up..... Appears to be in proper config for go around/forced landing....

[John Pleisse]

More keeps coming in. An eye witness says she made quick turn to avoid his office building by only 15 feet

[fantom]

A go-round that didn't make it. I may have an old photo of this plane at Mod Works after Hurricane Charlie. Another gut wrenching shame!

SAN DIEGO (AP) — A small plane crashed in a San Diego shopping center parking lot Wednesday, killing an 80-year-old woman who was the lone passenger and critically injuring her daughter, the pilot, authorities said.

The single-engine 1988 Mooney M-20L went down around 5:30 p.m. in a parking lot that serves a Costco and a Target store in the Kearny Mesa neighborhood.

The plane bounced while landing at nearby Montgomery Field, continued westbound and went down, said Ian Gregor, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration.

However, helicopter pilot Vince Carter said he had taken off from the field when he heard the pilot, in apparently her last radio transmission, tell the control tower that she had lost power on takeoff.

"She said she lost power and she was going down and that was it," he told KFMB-TV.

There was no immediate way to resolve the two reports.

The plane clipped the top of the Target store and knocked down a light pole, police Lt. Steve Behrendt said.

It spun around and finally landed in the parking lot in a loading dock area away from the main entrances, and no cars were there, city fire spokesman Lee Swanson said.

The plane caught fire, but the flames were quickly doused. He said the passenger had serious burns and died at a hospital.

The pilot, a 52-year-old woman, also had major injuries, he said. However, Behrendt said the injured woman was expected to survive.

A man who tried to help after the crash was treated for minor cuts and burns.

Gregg Smith was working in a nearby office building and saw the plane in trouble. It nearly hit his building, he said.

"I knew they didn't have enough power to do the things they needed to do," he told KNSD-TV. "I knew it was going down."

Smith said the plane left his view at that point, but he heard a loud thud and then the crash.

"The next thing I saw was a bunch of black smoke," he said.

Smith said he ran outside as he called 911.

He said 15 to 20 people were standing around the plane, some with fire extinguishers, and they managed to get the fire out before it reached the plane's fuel tank.

Television news reports showed the white plane appeared to be mostly intact, but its nose and one wing were torn up.

"The front of the passenger compartment, the engine is essentially broken off," Swanson said. "The landing gear is off, it's lying flat on its belly. There's some debris for several yards in each direction."

Carter praised the pilot's landing and said things could have been much worse.

"This is a miracle and testament to her skill as a pilot," he told KNSD-TV. "This could have very easily killed a lot of people. You could imagine, just shopping at Target, and a plane comes through the roof full of fuel."

"She stalled it out pretty much perfectly in the only spot she possibly could have," he said.

[IndyTim]

Wondering why a 550-equipped M20L wouldn't be climbing like a bat of hell.  She reported to the tower that she was full throttle.  

 

I can't really tell how much flap was still in the plane, from the pictures my estimate is 10% max.  No speed brakes are deployed, but even my 220hp 252 will climb at 700-800fpm with speed brakes - I've tested it.

 

Someone on beechtalk speculated that, if there were multiple bounces before go-around, possibly a bent prop.  That would make the engine sound funny to those who know what it should sound like. 

 

The other possibilities would be excessively low RPM, or way lean on the mixture.  I don't know if she had all the knobs forward, only that she reported full throttle.  And of course, there is always fuel contamination but normally you see that shortly into a flight.  She had already been up flying, and was attempting to land, so I think fuel contamination is a low-percentage possibility.