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Atlas / NTSB / FTW78DQG21

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event FTW78DQG21

1978-03-12 BIG SPRING, Texas, United States None 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Registry · N201DC

FAA Aircraft Registry record.

Make / Model

MOONEY M20J

Engine

LYCOMING I0360 SER A&C (200 hp)

Seats / Engines

4 seats · 1 engine

Last airworthiness date

19890403

ADS-B equipped

Yes — Mode-S A19608

Registrant of record

GAD AIRCRAFT SERVICES LLC

Source: FAA Aircraft Registry (releasable master file).

Aircraft involved

Historical record (pre-1982)

NTSB recorded this accident in the pre-1982 coded-field schema — structured fields rather than free-text narrative. Decoded codes use established NTSB single-letter taxonomies; cause factors remain verbatim pending the Form 6120.4 codebook lookup.

Aircraft

MOONEY M20 · N201DC

Damage

Substantial

Craft type

Airplane

Classification

Accident

Light condition

Dawn

Weather

VMC

Phase of flight

Cruise — descent (EF)

Operator type

Business

Airport

HOWARD COUNTY

Kind of flying

B0

Weather at impact

Sky

CLEAR

Wind

160° / 40 kt

Temp

69° F

Aircraft history

Serial number

0000024-O206

Total time

188 hrs

Pilot

Certificate

Commercial — instrument

Total hours

789

Age

51

Probable cause (from PRE1982.MDB)

L TO EXPECT HIGH SURFACE WINDS AND DUST.

Investigator remarks

WIND GUSTING TO 55KTS.PLT BRIEFED BY WX PERSONNE

Cause factors

  • 64/C/33 C
    PILOT IN COMMAND EXERCISED POOR JUDGMENT Cause
  • 64/C/79 C
    PILOT IN COMMAND FAILED TO MAINTAIN DIRECTIONAL CONTROL Cause
  • 64/B/07 B
    PILOT IN COMMAND DELAYED IN INITIATING GO-AROUND
  • 82/L/H L
    WEATHER UNFAVORABLE WIND CONDITIONS
  • 88/K/94 K
    MISCELLANEOUS ACTS,CONDITIONS OVERLOAD FAILURE Joint factor

Decoded against the NTSB Form 6120.4 cause-factor codebook (ct_Pre1982 table). Each row shows the raw triplet, modifier (Cause / Factor / etc.), category, and specific code.

Source: NTSB pre-1982 historical archive. Docket 3 0496. Source file NTSB_1978_3_0496.txt. Modern CAROL record on data.ntsb.gov ↗.

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Related research

What the literature says.

Academic papers and agency reports matching this event's aircraft type. Sourced from NASA NTRS, NTSB Safety Studies, FAA CAMI, AOPA Air Safety Institute, Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons, arXiv, and the Semantic Scholar academic graph.

Browse the full corpus — academia portal ↗