American Check Transport Mitsubishi MU-2B-60 accident
Mitsubishi MU-2B-60 · Accident: loss of engine power on approach
From Boise Air Terminal/Gowen Field (BOI) to Auburn Lewiston Municipal Airport (LEW)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI00FA070
- 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
- 1 · 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
- N152BK
- Operator
- American Check Transport
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Boise Air Terminal/Gowen Field (BOI), Boise, IDTo Auburn Lewiston Municipal Airport (LEW)
- 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
- 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 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Ignition system, continuous ignition › Not engaged
- Induction air ducting › Blocked(total)
- Induction air ducting › Ice
- Pilot in command › Procedures/directives, not followed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane impacted a ridgeline about 1.5 miles from the runway and approximately 7 to 14 seconds after the pilot reported a dual engine flameout. The airplane's altitude was about 400 feet agl when the pilot reported the flameout. The inspection of the airplane revealed no pre-existing anomalies. Icing conditions were forecast and PIREPS indicated that light to moderate rime/mixed icing conditions existed along the route of flight. The Continuous Ignition switches were found in the OFF position. The Approach procedures listed in the Airplane's Flight Manual stated, 'CONTINUOUS IGNITION SHALL BE SELECTED TO ON DURING APPROACH AND LANDING WHILE IN OR SHORTLY FOLLOWING FLIGHT IN ACTUAL OR POTENTIAL ICING CONDITIONS.' The aircraft manufacturer had issued a Service Bulletin in 1995 for the installation of an auto-ignition system to '... reduce the possibility of engine flame-out when icing conditions are encountered and the continuous ignition is not selected.' The operator had not installed the non-mandatory service bulletin. On May 5, 2000, the FAA issued an Airworthiness Directive that required the installation of an auto-ignition system. The toxicology test detected extremely high levels of dihydrocodeine in the pilot's blood. The pilot received a special issuance second-class medical certificate on August 22, 1995, after receiving treatment for a self disclosed history of drug abuse. The drug testing that this pilot underwent as a consequence of his previous self disclosed history of drug abuse would not have detected these substances.
Probable cause
the pilot failed to follow the flight manual procedures and did not engage the Continuous Ignition system resulting in both engines flaming out when the air induction system was blocked with ice. Additional factors to the accident included the hilly terrain, the icing conditions, and the operator not complying with a Service Bulletin for the installation of an auto-ignition system.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI00FA070
- Event ID
- 20001212X20451
- Case number
- CHI00FA070
- 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: 02ea40c479f1f6f76c7f5642769dae497de2545f7670cf96ca87c507841a4e5e; retrieved 2026-09-18T13:13:22.716Z.