ATL99LA054 · Mitsubishi MU-2B-20
Mitsubishi MU-2B-20 · Accident: loss of engine power during initial climb
From McGhee Tyson Airport (TYS) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL99LA054
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Completed
- API-reported fatalities
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- General aviation
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Mitsubishi MU-2B-20
- Aircraft type
- Mitsubishi MU-2
- Category
- Airplane
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- N176BJ
- Operator
- Gregory K. Benson · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From McGhee Tyson Airport (TYS)To not recorded
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 91: General Aviation
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- Initial climb
- First occurrenceThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Loss of engine power
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Gear extension › Not attained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
About 30 minutes into the flight, the right engine lost power. The pilot attempted to restart the engine, but was unsuccessful. The pilot secured the right engine and feathered the right propeller. Shortly after attempting to restart the right engine, the pilot said he also experienced a complete loss of electrical power, and was unable to use his radios. The pilot said he placed the landing gear lever in the down position, and established an approach to runway 5R for an emergency landing. The airplane touched down and skidded off the left side of the runway. Examination of the airplane and the engine assemblies failed to disclose a mechanical malfunction or component failure. During the extensive airplane examination the electrical system was also functionally checked; the examination failed to disclose any mechanical problems. When the master switch was placed in the on position 75% of the battery power was restored to the airplane. The electrical power source was sufficient to activate the landing gear doors. During the examination of the fuel system, fuel was traced from the fuel tank to the fuel control unit. There was no mechanical problems discovered with the right fuel shut-off valve; the right fuel shut-off valve functioned normally.
Probable cause
A loss of engine power for undetermined reasons. Contributing to the accident was the failure of the landing gear to extend for undetermined reasons.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL99LA054
- Event ID
- 20001205X00258
- Case number
- ATL99LA054
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (4)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: e119d91afb202fba16722692252356bb5704a62c00d8c125958cc04d58b13b14; retrieved 2026-09-22T15:43:17.345Z.