Air 500 Mitsubishi MU-2B-60 accident
Mitsubishi MU-2B-60 · Accident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From Syracuse Hancock International Airport (SYR) to Laurence G Hanscom Field (BED)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC91LA250
- 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
- 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
- CFFSS
- Operator
- Air 500
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Syracuse Hancock International Airport (SYR), Syracuse, NYTo Laurence G Hanscom Field (BED), Bedford, MA
- 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 129: Foreign
- 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
- En route · climb to cruise
- 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- 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
- Propeller system/accessories, hub › Fatigue
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Utica, NY, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
DURING CLIMB, ONE OF THE FOUR PROPELLER BLADES ON THE NUMBER TWO ENGINE SEPARATED FROM THE PROPELLER HUB, DAMAGING ANOTHER PROPELLER BLADE AND THE FUSELAGE. SHORTLY THEREAFTER, THE ENGINE SHUT DOWN. THE ROTATIONAL UNBALANCE WAS ACCOMPANIED BY EXTREME VIBRATION AND RESULTED IN DISTORTION AND DAMAGE TO THE ENGINE/COWL ASSEMBLY AND THE WING. THE UPPER PORTION OF THE ENGINE COWL WAS DEFLECTED UPWARD OVER THE WING AT AN ANGLE OF ABOUT 30 DEG, RESULTING IN DISTORTION OF AIRFLOW, BUFFETING, AND DEGRADATION OF ROLL CONTROL. DUE TO EXCESSIVE DRAG, MAXIMUM POWER WAS REQUIRED ON THE NUMBER ONE ENGINE IN ORDER TO CONTROL THE RATE OF DESCENT AND LAND SUCCESSFULLY. A METALLURGICAL EXAMINATION DISCLOSED EVIDENCE OF FATIGUE CRACKING OF THE PROPELLER HUB ARM.
Probable cause
FATIGUE CRACKING OF THE PROPELLER HUB.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC91LA250
- Event ID
- 20001212X18180
- Case number
- NYC91LA250
- 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: 7a9e39ff5a17ab22315d663bfe161db28b42beef95c7288a87361ff80a9b9f17; retrieved 2026-09-18T18:52:10.056Z.