FTW96LA215 · Mitsubishi MU-2B-40
Mitsubishi MU-2B-40 · Accident: loss of engine power during initial climb
From William P. Hobby Airport (HOU) to Austin Bergstrom International Airport (AUS)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW96LA215
- 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-40
- 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
- N40AM
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From William P. Hobby Airport (HOU)To Austin Bergstrom International Airport (AUS), Austin, TX
- 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
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, not obtained/maintained
- Pilot in command › Flaps, improper use of
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that after takeoff, the airplane yawed to the left, and he observed that the torquemeter for the left engine was fluctuating. He feathered the left engine and began turning back toward the airport. The pilot reported that he maintained 20 degrees of flaps and the airplane would not climb over 200 feet AGL. According to the manufacturer's directions, if the flap setting is over 5 degrees, climb performance is not guaranteed. The pilot also reported that his airspeed was 115 knots. The manufacturer's directions called for maintaining at least 140 knots. The pilot elected to land on the departure runway, in the opposite direction from which he had departed. He approached the runway 90 degrees to the centerline, and performed a 90 degree turn to align the airplane with the runway. He delayed gear extension in order to reach the runway. When he extended the landing gear, the airplane stalled and touched down before the landing gear reached the 'down and locked' position. Subsequently, the gear collapsed, and the airplane slid off the runway. The owner did not make the engine available for further testing after the accident.
Probable cause
failure of the pilot to obtain/maintain proper airspeed and flap setting for single engine flight. A factor relating to the accident was: Loss of power in the left engine for an undetermined reason.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW96LA215
- Event ID
- 20001208X05766
- Case number
- FTW96LA215
- 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: 423706a5a4572034ff3d2e4ed1c22fcd0c6049b6a1eac603016925b7f4842d2f; retrieved 2026-09-21T21:50:18.058Z.