NYC96LA188 · Mitsubishi MU-2B-30
Mitsubishi MU-2B-30 · Accident: loss of engine power during initial climb
From RZT to The Ohio State University Airport - Don Scott Field (OSU)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC96LA188
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Mitsubishi MU-2B-30
- 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
- N618BB
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From RZTTo The Ohio State University Airport - Don Scott Field (OSU), Columbus, OH
- 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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 › Emergency procedure, not followed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The Pilot (plt) said that after climbing about 500' after takeoff, at 120 kts with the gear retracted, the left engine lost power. He feathered the propeller, lowered the nose to the horizon, & began a shallow left turn back to the airport. He left the flaps at 20 deg & noted a descent of 200' to 300' per min in the turn. After clearing trees, the plt extended the landing gear, banked the aircraft (acft) to the right to align it with the runway (rwy), & lowered flaps to 40 deg. After touchdown, he applied single engine reversing. Acft went off right side of rwy & into a ditch, collapsing the right main & nose gear. Exam of the engine revealed the torque sensor housing had failed, resulting in loss of drive to the fuel pump. Metallurgical exam of the housing arm of the torque sensor revealed it had failed from fatigue. On 9/14/79, a service bulletin (SB) was issued for replacement of the torque sensor housing with an improved housing. The manufacturer overhauled the engine on 12/1179, but SB was not complied with. SB indicated a history of resonant vibration causing cracks in the housing arm of original torque sensor & gear assemblies, & that the housing should be replaced, no later than during next part exposure. Investigation revealed pilot did not comply with engine failure procedures & airspeeds. Flight manual cautioned not to use 40 deg of flaps during single engine landings.
Probable cause
failure of the pilot to follow the published emergency procedures after loss of power in the left engine. Factors relating to the accident were: fatigue failure of the left torque sensor and gear assembly, which resulted in the loss of engine power, failure of the manufacturer to comply with the respective service bulletin, and the pilot's improper use of the flaps and reverse (single-engine) thrust.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC96LA188
- Event ID
- 20001208X06804
- Case number
- NYC96LA188
- 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: 14d719cdb223e44f4da11a50e2f9b69dd1a59de7826b75b6743d1428ebc1d5ce; retrieved 2026-09-18T17:46:17.481Z.