Michael
Pattern Altitude
I recived this via email froma member of our mooney group. Since it looks like a controll failure I thought i would share it. Its worth looking into if you own an older mooney.
I have a bit of sad news to report myself; my 1965 M20C, N5577Q, was in an accident last week. Some of you may remember this as Drew Stidger's plane, he was the previous owner and had it for a long time. I want to tell my fellow Mooney owners about the accident because it involved a mechanical problem that could affect any vintage Mooney.
I had the airplane in for maintenance at Auburn last Tuesday, Sept. 19th, (new tire, oil change,and check of charging system). When I did the run up and preflight on Wednesday the 20th everything seemed normal. I always do a complete "box" to make sure the controls are free and working. When I taxied onto the runway and applied full power she accelerated normally and I held a little forward pressure on the yoke to keep her on the ground until reaching rotation speed. But then prior to reaching rotation, she lifted off and pitched up abruptly and went nose up, almost vertical; it was then when I pushed the yoke forward all the way to the panel that I realized there was no longer a connection between the yoke and the elevators! I am guessing she had popped up to 30-50 feet above the runway. All I could do was try to get the power pulled and nose down with no elevator control. I kept the wings level and used the rudder to stay over the runway. Even as I pulled the power back, she remained nose high and even though I tried adding just a little power to slow the descent, she pancaked down really hard. The gear was still down for takeoff and collapsed on the runway. It all happened in seconds.
My nose hit the control wheel and my back got wrenched a bit, but I was walking around until the CHP para medics put me on the back board and took me by helicopter to the hospital. The CHP helicopter team is based at Auburn and was great by the way, their pilots wanted to give first priority to a fellow pilot, the helicopter was there in like 3 minutes and ready to go, and the ride was free. I checked out fine and walked out of the hospital with a sore back and bloodied nose.
I made all the notifications and the NTSB examined the plane. They found that the elevator control rod had broken at the point where the ball joint and bearing meet. I think they will be looking to add an inspection of the rod and ball since they told me this had not happened in a Mooney according to the records.
As you know, we pilots do not like the black eye that accidents give all of us in aviation, so I have downplayed the seriousness of the incident to my family and friends, but you and I know I dodged a major bullet. I don't think I could have done much differently, but a loss of control close to the ground is not an experience I would encourage anyone to try.
Please let the other Mooney guys know I am fine and expect to be back in the air soon. But also, I thank heaven I was in 77Q, she os one tough bird and built Mooney tough. I have flown her more than 200 hours in the past 15 months or so. I am in better shape than she is.