FTW90FA072 · Mitsubishi MU-2B-60
Mitsubishi MU-2B-60 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Midland Airpark (MDD) to Dallas Love Field (DAL)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW90FA072
- 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
- 5 · 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
- N300CW
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Midland Airpark (MDD), Midland, TXTo Dallas Love Field (DAL), Dallas, 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
- En route · 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
- In flight encounter with weather
- 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
- Fuselage › Ice
- Pilot in command › Aircraft control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, inadequate
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, improper
- Stabilizer › Ice
- Wing › Ice
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
BFR TKOF, SAN ANGELO AFSS BRIEFER TOLD THE PLT COMPUTERS WERE DWN IN SOUTH TX FOR 1.5 HRS & NO CURRENT WX INFO WAS AVBL.CURRENT WX INFO WAS AVBL AT NWS AT MIDLAND & FSS'S AT MIDLAND, MCALESTER & DE RIDDER, BUT THE PLT DIDN'T CALL THESE, NORDID THE BRIEFER ADZ HIM TO DO SO. PLT DIDN'T UPDATE WX IN FLT. ABT 38 MIN AFTER TKOF, IN AREA OF POTENTIAL ICING, ACFT SLOWED FM 270 TO 150 KTS GS IN 4 MIN, THEN SLOWED TO 100 KTS IN NEXT 12 SEC. ABT 33 SEC BFR RCHG 100 KTS, PLT RQD DSCNT FM 15,000' TO 13,000'. AT THAT TIME, TRUE GND TRACK WAS APRX 080 DEG WITH WND ALOFT ABT 213 DEG AT 43 KTS. BFR ATC COULDCLR DSCNT, ACFT DSCNDD TO 14,800, THEN RADAR CTC WAS LOST AFTER 1 RTRN AT 9700'. DSCNT RATE BTN LAST 2 ALTS: 12,750 FPM.NO PREIMPACT MALFUNCTION WAS FND. IMC EXISTED ABV 12,500'. FRZG LVL WAS FCST AT 10,000' TO 12,000'. ACFT WAS CERT FOR FLT IN KNOWN ICING CONDS, BUT STATUS OF ANTI-ICE/DE-ICE EQUIP WASN'T DTRMD DUE TO IMPACT/FIRE DMG. LOW LVLS OF ETHANOL WERE FND IN TOX SAMPLES FM ALL OCCUPANTS; HOWEVER, THERE WAS EVIDENCE THAT THE TOX SAMPLES WERE UNRELIABLE.
Probable cause
IMPROPER PLANNING/DECISION BY THE PILOT, WHICH RESULTED IN EXCESSIVE ACCUMMULATION OF STRUCTURAL ICING (ON THE AIRCRAFT'S WINGS, STABILIZERS, FUSELAGE, AND/OR ENGINE INLETS), AND HIS FAILURE TO MAINTAIN ADEQUATE AIRSPEED AND AIRCRAFT CONTROL. FACTORS RELATED TO THE ACCIDENT WERE: THE PILOT'S INADEQUATE WEATHER EVALUATION DUE TO LACK OF AVAILABLE INFORMATION AT THE AUTOMATED FLIGHT SERVICE STATION (AFSS), HIS FAILURE TO OBTAIN ADDITIONAL INFORMATION FROM OTHER WEATHER STATIONS (EITHER BEFORE TAKEOFF OR DURING THE FLIGHT), HIS LACK OF EXPERIENCE IN THIS MAKE AND MODEL OF AIRCRAFT, AND ICING CONDITIONS AT CRUISE ALTITUDE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW90FA072
- Event ID
- 20001212X22562
- Case number
- FTW90FA072
- 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: 9cd4f43a4a9ceeed55d86794b6ea2bf0b30984a6732459632486d3f0bbb294bb; retrieved 2026-09-21T02:57:29.568Z.