DEN01FA113 · Mitsubishi MU-2B-20
Mitsubishi MU-2B-20 · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Mount Hawley Auxiliary Airport (3MY) to Santa Fe Municipal Airport (SAF)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN01FA113
- 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
- 2 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- 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-20
- 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
- N187AF
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Mount Hawley Auxiliary Airport (3MY), Peoria, ILTo Santa Fe Municipal Airport (SAF), Santa Fe, NM
- 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
- Maneuvering
- 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
- 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
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was maneuvering the airplane south of the airport preparing to make a VFR approach. Witnesses observed the airplane in a right spin. NTAP data showed the airplane to be well above stall speed before disappearing from radar. Examination of the radar data revealed that in 6 seconds, ground speed dropped 31 knots, from 200 knots to 169 knots, and altitude dropped 440 feet, from 11,760 feet to 11,320 feet (4,400 feet per minute). In the next 6 seconds, ground speed dropped another 31 knots, from 169 knots to 138 knots, and altitude dropped 1,020 feet, from 11,320 feet to 10,300 feet (10,200 feet per minute). According to the manufacturer, if the throttles were to be brought back into Beta (flat pitch) range, it is possible that one propeller could go into Beta an instant before the other propeller. If this were to happen, the airplane would instantly snap roll and enter a spiral. The pilot had received an estimated 4 hours of dual instruction in the airplane.
Probable cause
the pilot's loss of aircraft control inflight for reasons undetermined. Contributing factors were the pilot's inadequate transition/upgrade training and his total lack of experience in aircraft make/model.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN01FA113
- Event ID
- 20010619X01205
- Case number
- DEN01FA113
- 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, coordinates. 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: c31b13def59517174f4463631d3b2bb7980a7f3e305e215969fa152e90ccaff0; retrieved 2026-09-20T20:30:59.584Z.