NYC05LA025 · Mitsubishi MU-2B-60
Mitsubishi MU-2B-60 · Accident: on ground/water collision with object during takeoff
From Philadelphia International Airport (PHL) to Teterboro Airport (TEB)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC05LA025
- 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
- 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
- N941MA
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Philadelphia International Airport (PHL), Philadelphia, PATo Teterboro Airport (TEB), Teterboro, NJ
- 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
- Takeoff · rejected takeoff
- 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
- On ground/water collision with object
- 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
- Atc clearance procedure › Improper
- Atc personnel(lcl/gnd/clnc) › Atc clearance, not coordinated/diseminated
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane collided with a tug during takeoff. According to the pilot of the MU-2 airplane he was cleared to taxi from his parking spot on the northeast side of the airport, to runway 35, by the ground controller on duty. He then taxied to runway 35 via taxiway A, taxiway D, across runway 26, to taxiway K. Approximately 1 minute after the pilot of the MU-2 was cleared to taxi, the same ground controller cleared a maintenance tug towing an MD-80, to taxi from the same (northeast) ramp as the MU-2, to a ramp on the west side of runway 35. The taxi clearance issued by the ground controller included a clearance for the tug to cross runway 35. Once the MU-2 pilot arrived at the runway, he contacted the tower controller and was cleared for takeoff from runway 35. The pilot initiated a takeoff, and as the airplane reached an airspeed of 80 knots, the pilot observed an aircraft tug crossing the runway centerline. The pilot then aborted the takeoff, and maneuvered the airplane to the left side of the runway; however, the airplane contacted the tug at the intersection of runway 35 and taxiways "Golf" and "Echo." At the time of the accident, three full performance level air traffic controllers were working in the tower cab; a local controller (LCE), ground controller (GC), and clearance delivery controller. The LCE and GC positions were located next to each other in the northeast corner of the tower cab. FAA Air Traffic Control regulations required that a ground controller must obtain approval from a local controller before authorizing an aircraft or a vehicle to cross or use any portion of an active runway. Additionally, the standard operating procedures for the airport required all runway crossing authorization and runway crossing complete coordination to be accomplished via a recorded landline. Controller interviews and review of recorded voice communications revealed the ground controller did not coordinate the runway crossing of the maintenance tug with the local controller.
Probable cause
The failure of the ground controller to coordinate the runway crossing of a maintenance tug, with the local controller, which resulted in a ground collision with an MU-2 airplane during it's takeoff roll.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC05LA025
- Event ID
- 20041213X01971
- Case number
- NYC05LA025
- 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: 6cdf58613600ecc9741b1158f24a82f8f3db55bda1aee65fbcc1470b6aa5f787; retrieved 2026-09-18T15:11:39.344Z.