DEN92FA040 · Mitsubishi MU-2B-60
Mitsubishi MU-2B-60 · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Fort Worth Spinks Airport (FWS) to Garfield County Regional Airport (RIL)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN92FA040
- 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
- 6 · 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-60
- 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
- N303CA
- Operator
- Neece, S.R./Geesbreght, J.M.
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Fort Worth Spinks Airport (FWS), Fort Worth, TXTo Garfield County Regional Airport (RIL), Rifle, CO
- 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
- Approach · IFR initial approach
- 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 control in flight
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Stall
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Stall, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE AIRPLANE IMPACTED MOUNTAINOUS TERRAIN APPROXIMATELY 10.5 DME FROM THE AIRPORT WHILE EXECUTING A LOC-DME INSTRUMENT APPROACH. THE AIRPLANE WAS CONFIGURED FOR LANDING. THE ELEVATOR TRIM JACKSCREW WAS APPROXIMATELY 18 DEGREES NOSE UP. THE ALTITUDE PRESELECT, COUPLED TO THE SPERRY AUTOPILOT SYSTEM, WAS SET AT 9,500 FEET. MINIMUM DESCENT ALTITUDE UNTIL REACHING THE FINAL APPROACH FIX IS 9,500 FEET. FINAL APPROACH FIX IS LOCATED AT 9.3 DME. TWENTY FOUR PRESCRIPTION AND NONPRESCRIPTION DRUGS WERE FOUND ABOARD THE AIRPLANE. THE PILOT'S TOXICOLOGY REPORT DISCLOSED 0.206 (UG/ML, UG/G) CHLORPHENIRAMINE, AN ANTIHISTAMINE, IN HIS LIVER FLUID. ACCORDING TO AN FAA FLIGHT SURGEON, THIS WOULD EQUATE TO APPROXIMATELY .034 UG/ML IN BLOOD. THERAPEUTIC DOSAGE IS .01 TO .04 UG/ML. THE DRUG IS CONTRAINDICATED FOR FLYING DUE TO ITS CAPABILITY OF PRODUCING DROWSINESS. CHLORPHENIRAMINE IS AN INGREDIENT FOUND IN COMTREX, ONE OF THE DRUGS FOUND ABOARD THE AIRPLANE.
Probable cause
AN INADVERTENT STALL DURING AN INSTRUMENT APPROACH WITH THE AUTOPILOT ENGAGED. A FACTOR WAS: THE PILOT'S PHYSICAL IMPAIRMENT FROM A PRESCRIPTION DRUG.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN92FA040
- Event ID
- 20001211X14272
- Case number
- DEN92FA040
- 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: ad1218a88ff1c29760aabed098996b687589dabfc761da5057fa32ba0c7d5ad4; retrieved 2026-09-21T01:19:35.506Z.