LAX95FA046 · Maule M-5-235C
Maule M-5-235C · Accident: in flight collision with object en route
From Kern Valley Airport (L05) to Mammoth Yosemite Airport (MMH)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX95FA046
- 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
- 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
Maule M-5-235C
- Aircraft type
- Maule M-5
- 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
- N5629J
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Kern Valley Airport (L05), KERN VALLEY, CATo Mammoth Yosemite Airport (MMH), Mammoth Lakes, CA
- 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 collision with object
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Tree(s)
- 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
- Pilot in command › Altitude, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While on a personal sightseeing flight in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, the aircraft collided with trees at the 8,300-foot level in a box canyon. The floor of the canyon rises steeply from the entrance; about 3,000 feet in 3 miles. The surrounding ridge tops which form the box rise to elevations in excess of 11,000 feet msl. Based on witness and NWS observations along the route of flight, light wind conditions prevailed in and around the accident site with no documented unusual meteorological phenomena. A passenger took videotapes of the accident flight and two previous flights. The parts of the tape with the prior flights showed the aircraft flying extremely low in and out of mountain valleys, along the desert floor, and at wave top level along the beach. The parts of the tape with the accident flight showed the aircraft low flying along the desert floor in a canyon, then buzzing a lake. The remainder of the tape showed the aircraft flying up the river valley which leads to the accident site until it abruptly stops at a damaged portion of the tape. The pilot said he flew up the river valley about 1,800 to 2,000 feet above the river [6,000 to 7,000 feet msl], then turned right at a fork in the river which leads up to the accident site canyon. He said he was at 12,000 feet msl when he turned and was over the surrounding ridges. Nearing the accident site area, the aircraft was suddenly rolled and yawed to the right by very strong turbulence. The pilot said he had the impression that the aircraft was being pushed forward and down towards the ground by some strong force. The aircraft was descending and the pilot said he managed to recover the aircraft to level flight just before colliding with trees.
Probable cause
the pilot's entry into a box canyon at an altitude insufficient to maintain clearance from the surrounding terrain and obstacles. Factors in the accident were the high density altitude condition and the steep, rapidly rising nature of the mountainous terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX95FA046
- Event ID
- 20001206X02613
- Case number
- LAX95FA046
- 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: 0a65065c13e91b860f6712e00ae0792561e649f2feb476e6f9a39aee3dcfc867; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:55:43.833Z.