FTW03IA073 · Mitsubishi MU-2B-60
Mitsubishi MU-2B-60 · Incident: loss of engine power en route
From Hartsfield Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL) to Frederick W. Smith International Airport (MEM)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW03IA073
- 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
- Incident
- 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
- 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
- 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
- N610CA
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Hartsfield Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL), Atlanta, GATo Frederick W. Smith International Airport (MEM), Memphis, TN
- 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
- 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
- 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
- None
Cause areas
- Reduction gear assembly, propeller shaft › Failure
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While in cruise flight, the airplane sustained a contained in-flight right engine failure due to a fatigue failure of the propeller shaft coupling. At a cruise altitude of 9,000 feet approximately 60 miles east of his destination, the pilot heard a "bang." The engine RPM and engine temperature gauges indicated a failure of the right engine. The pilot secured the right engine, declared an emergency to air traffic control, and landed uneventfully. Examination of the propeller shaft coupling revealed a fracture that was caused by a fatigue crack that emanated from the corner radius of a lubrication slot where the corner radius converges with the root of an inner spline. At the time of the engine failure, the engine had accumulated 6,010.2 total hours since overhaul.
Probable cause
the loss of right engine power as a result of a fatigue failure of the propeller shaft coupling.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW03IA073
- Event ID
- 20030108X00034
- Case number
- FTW03IA073
- 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, damage. 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: f0d4a2e1651011de6135f6719db4354e9c66eef22ec4f542f28a76cbe90c2822; retrieved 2026-09-18T15:59:04.963Z.