Mooney 252, N1005U, Lands Long Crashing Off End of Runway Into Trees and Down Embankment - Fairmont, WV

[1980Mooney]

Few details.  Occurred Friday, August 30. Witness reported that it overshot the runway at Fairmont Municipal Airport-Frankman Field, (4G7).   Runway is only 2,965 ft, long and trees are at the end of the runway.  Wind does not seem to be a factor - was about 3 mph from the North.

"Caller advising the plane went off the end of the runway down by the river. Multiple injuries reported.  Units on scene with 2 patients, both conscious and alert. 1 wing broken with fuel leaking. Plane is about 100 ft off the runway. Fire Dept is using a stokes basket to bring the patients up the hill."

https://asn.flightsafety.org/wikibase/419051

Pilot and passenger survived. 

Plane is a 1989, M20K, 252.  Current owner, age 64 years per internet,  purchased it in 2015 and was based in Albuquerque until about 2020 and then Indiana.

https://www.aircraft.com/aircraft/200946443/n1005u-1989-mooney-m20k-252tse

https://www.aircraft.com/aircraft/200735563/n1005u-1989-mooney-m20k-252tse

[PeteMc]

Glad they survived.  Hope we eventually get some details that we can all learn from. 

 

Edited September 2 by PeteMc

[1980Mooney]

12 minutes ago, PeteMc said:

Glad they survived.  Hope we eventually get some details that we can all learn from. 

 

Unfortunately, there’s no published ADS-B detail while the Mooney was on Final or on the runway on either FlightAware or ADSBExchange.  You’ll probably have to wait 1 - 2 years for the NTSB to provide any anything.  

[Hank]

That's quite the hill to run over the edge of! I've been to Fairmont, always landing the other direction--on short final, it looks more like a cliff than a hill.

At the other end is a rising exit ramp from the interstate, so he likely accelerated following it down. Again, it was under me on departure. 

Best wishes for their recovery!

[1980Mooney]

A couple observations.

• It appears that he landed on Runway 05.
• Runway 05 has a 0.7% downslope
• Runway 05 has a 720 ft displacement.  That means he only had 2,245 ft. usable (although there appears to be about 200 ft in the runup area before the Runway 23 threshold which could be used as overrun)

[1980Mooney]

3 hours ago, Hank said:

That's quite the hill to run over the edge of! I've been to Fairmont, always landing the other direction--on short final, it looks more like a cliff than a hill.

At the other end is a rising exit ramp from the interstate, so he likely accelerated following it down. Again, it was under me on departure. 

Best wishes for their recovery!

[Shadrach]

This pilot made one crucial mistake that precipitated this accident.

[1980Mooney]

5 hours ago, Shadrach said:

This pilot made one crucial mistake that precipitated this accident.

Since no-one else is going to ask, then what was the one crucial mistake?

FAA ASIAS is posted:

"AIRCRAFT ATTEMPTED A GO-AROUND AND CRASHED OFF THE END OF THE RUNWAY, FAIRMONT, WV."

 

[Shadrach]

On 9/3/2024 at 6:18 PM, 1980Mooney said:

Since no-one else is going to ask, then what was the one crucial mistake?

FAA ASIAS is posted:

"AIRCRAFT ATTEMPTED A GO-AROUND AND CRASHED OFF THE END OF THE RUNWAY, FAIRMONT, WV."

 

Short answer - continuing the approach. He failed to pick a prudent go/no go point to assess the quality of the approach and act on it.

If one is going to engage in operations that necessitate reduced margins, the go/no go decision point should be made well ahead of entering the reduced margin environment.

I am speculating that like so many other Mooney pilots, he carried a surplus of energy to the runway. We’ve all pooched an approach. I am also speculating that the excess energy was recognizable but the approach to landing continued . The go around was likely initiated in a panic with the airplane having too much energy to stop but insufficient energy to clear the trees even at full throttle.  I hope I’m wrong about this accident but it’s not like this is an unusual scenario.

I have made hundreds of Mooney landings into a number of <2000’ strips, sometimes with >
<1500’ available for landing. I’ve had a few pucker inducing situations.   My SOP has evolved in such a way that I expect to go around, not land.  As I cross the threshold, I only abort the go around in favor of a landing if speed and descent rate are in a very narrow range of acceptability.

 

 

[Echo]

Looks like here was an accident with good discussion (useful) information that could help others. Hmmm, maybe aviationist didn’t read this one?  Maybe he/she doesn’t understand that the only failure in an accident is if nothing is learned (from the accident)to prevent a similar occurrence in the future. 

[wombat]

I like to tell people "You can always go around" but that's not actually true.   There comes a point in many landings where a go-around is no longer possible.

On a long runway (5,000' or more) with light weight and low density altitude, you can probably go around at any point at all, up to and including after a full stop.

But on a short runway and/or poor performance due to aircraft weight or DA, there is a point beyond which even with perfect technique, a successful go-around will not be possible.

In this case it sounds like the pilot probably had relatively poor technique to begin with, carrying too much energy into the landing (or continuing to produce it) so it's not surprising that they didn't have good command of the energy required to go-around and control of the factors that would affect that a lot like flaps and gear.

What can/should we do to help prevent this from happening to others?    I hardly think of Mooneys as STOL aircraft, but perhaps we should add additional time during BFRs for short field landings and go-arounds?     Many Mooneys fly exclusively from very long runways (4,000' or more counts as 'long' here) and it's easy to get away with extremely sloppy landing airspeeds, since you can just float your way to a touchdown eventually.  So if your ideal final approach airspeed is 75 Kt, it's easy to fly it 'usually' at  85, and if you are plus or minus 10 it always works out.    Since we all know that 2,500' is doable, so this is setting pilots up for failure as they have lost the skill and knowledge to fly the approach at 75.   With the false confidence of years of landings at long runways, they set themselves up for failure.

I wonder when the accident pilot last did their BFR and when the last time they did short field landing practice was.   Or when they last did slow flight, or heard their stall warning horn.

[Shadrach]

21 hours ago, wombat said:

I like to tell people "You can always go around" but that's not actually true.   There comes a point in many landings where a go-around is no longer possible.

On a long runway (5,000' or more) with light weight and low density altitude, you can probably go around at any point at all, up to and including after a full stop.

But on a short runway and/or poor performance due to aircraft weight or DA, there is a point beyond which even with perfect technique, a successful go-around will not be possible.

In this case it sounds like the pilot probably had relatively poor technique to begin with, carrying too much energy into the landing (or continuing to produce it) so it's not surprising that they didn't have good command of the energy required to go-around and control of the factors that would affect that a lot like flaps and gear.

What can/should we do to help prevent this from happening to others?    I hardly think of Mooneys as STOL aircraft, but perhaps we should add additional time during BFRs for short field landings and go-arounds?     Many Mooneys fly exclusively from very long runways (4,000' or more counts as 'long' here) and it's easy to get away with extremely sloppy landing airspeeds, since you can just float your way to a touchdown eventually.  So if your ideal final approach airspeed is 75 Kt, it's easy to fly it 'usually' at  85, and if you are plus or minus 10 it always works out.    Since we all know that 2,500' is doable, so this is setting pilots up for failure as they have lost the skill and knowledge to fly the approach at 75.   With the false confidence of years of landings at long runways, they set themselves up for failure.

I wonder when the accident pilot last did their BFR and when the last time they did short field landing practice was.   Or when they last did slow flight, or heard their stall warning horn.

Some of it’s currency but it’s mostly understanding approach speed as a multiple of Vso, knowing vso for your op weight, and being disciplined enough to maintain it.  In terms of airmanship, it’s pretty easy.  In my opinion, it’s less rust and more laziness. I think if you ask a most pilots after they've had an RLOC/over run incident, they would be at a loss to give correct approximations of the aforementioned numbers.

[1980Mooney]

41 minutes ago, Shadrach said:

Some of its currency but it’s mostly understanding approach speed as a multiple of Vso, knowing vso for your op weight, and being disciplined enough to maintain it.  In terms of airmanship, it’s pretty easy.  In my opinion, it’s less rust and more laziness. I think if you ask a most pilots after they've had an RLOC/over run incident, they would be at a loss to give correct approximations of the aforementioned numbers.

I wonder if he was surprised by the 720 foot displaced threshold when landing on RWY 05 which is a loss of nearly 25% of the runway. I also wonder if he was aware of the downslope.  
 

You mention “laziness” which I assume you mean is lack of preparation. In the “old days“ of paper charts inbound directories, which were hard to work with in the cabin, it was always important to fully brief everything before flight. Nowadays, with everything available, literally at your fingertip with a touch either on the panel or on an iPad, it’s easier to just “wing it. A pilot can just brief as he goes …. Or maybe not brief at all – hence the surprise.  

[Shadrach]

On 9/10/2024 at 6:47 PM, 1980Mooney said:

I wonder if he was surprised by the 720 foot displaced threshold when landing on RWY 05 which is a loss of nearly 25% of the runway. I also wonder if he was aware of the downslope.  
 

You mention “laziness” which I assume you mean is lack of preparation. In the “old days“ of paper charts inbound directories, which were hard to work with in the cabin, it was always important to fully brief everything before flight. Nowadays, with everything available, literally at your fingertip with a touch either on the panel or on an iPad, it’s easier to just “wing it. A pilot can just brief as he goes …. Or maybe not brief at all – hence the surprise.  

It’s probably a function of frequenting this space, but it’s my perception that there was a lot more “winging it” back in the paper days.  Information was not as available or easily acquired either. The only info spigots flowing were magazines, technical publications and other pilots/CFIs around the drome. Safety culture was inconsistent. 

People were a lot more cavalier…I’ve heard the stories. My airport was full of old and bold maniacs that thought there ADM was perfectly reasonable. Most of them lived to old age, a handful that didn’t, served as the subject matter of many stories in the pilots lounge.  Overshooting a runway is child’s play compared to the shit that these guys did and got away with.
 

[A64Pilot]

What precipitated my one landing “incident” was my belief that I could salvage a bad approach, that and I was determined for some stupid reason to make the mid field turn off.

What I learned from that was something I already knew, never try to salvage a bad approach, so I landed hard and broke the right gear and stood there looking at about 2,000 ft of usable runway in front of me. All trying to make the turn off that I always used

[A64Pilot]

On 9/10/2024 at 8:45 PM, Shadrach said:

People were a lot more cavalier…I’ve heard the stories. My airport was full of old and bold maniacs that thought their ADM was perfectly reasonable. Most of them lived to old age, a handful that didn’t served as the subject matter of many stories in the pilots lounge.  Overshooting a runway child’s play compared to the shit that these guys did and got away with.
 

I was around then, I think there are a LOT more accidents now than then, back then there was a lot more seat of the pants flying, and way more short field flying and well just way more flying as in the average pilot flew a lot more than the average pilot now, has to do with age of aircraft and relative expense to fly then vs now I believe. Back then a Middle class person could afford a “used” airplane that was five years or so old and had original engine and prop with less than 1000 hours on them for their first airplane and there were literally more different manufacturers of aircraft to choose from than there were cars. There was also much more of a progression of aircraft bought, by that I mean your first complex aircraft was not your first aircraft, they were cheap enough to be bought and sold every few years, so many progressed up to twins, with a twin being usually about the fourth aircraft you bought, interestingly many that progressed to twins next airplane was a “heavy single” but I digress. The whole attitude and culture around flying was completely different then, it was upbeat and everyone looked forward to next years new models etc and the industry was growing by leaps and bounds. It was a happy time if you will, but then Society was, the perfectly logical assumption was that next year would be better than this year as in spendable income etc. That ended in my opinion in the early 80’s, we didn’t realize it then but looking back I think that was the beginning of the decline.

But now I see very inexperienced pilots spending lots of money on autopilots and “glass” that they should be spending on fuel and parts to fly and gain experience, but largely due to social media they believe there is this list of must have modifications to their aircraft

Today I see more accidents that seem to indicate inexperience than back then. By back then I mean late 60’s and on.

Everyone whether they want to admit it or not follows the same path, as junior pilots they are actually pretty safe, they tend to take out the checklist and use it every time, always enter the pattern mid field downwind etc. They establish routines whether they realize it or not. Their accidents usually occur when they get task saturated and the time doesn’t exist for the methodical approach.

Then we cocky, think we’ve got this, it’s easy, we don’t need a checklist for anything else so we don’t use one in the airplane, we enter on base or straight in etc., this breaks the routine we had set up earlier and we are more likely to forget pushing the prop in or gear or whatever. Most often this ends when we scare the snot out of ourselves and the smart ones digress to being methodical and not breaking routines etc again, or don’t and have an accident.

But one thing that’s different is that now there are pilots that have been pilots for years, even decades that are relatively inexperienced, that’s always been true, but there are more now. Back to age of aircraft and increased cost to fly, maybe.

One thing that fosters that is our age of social media, used to be to be able to be among other pilots and hangar talk etc you had to go to the airport and usually fly, now you just pull out your phone.

Edited September 30 by A64Pilot