SEA96FA010 · Maule M-5-235C
Maule M-5-235C · Accident: airframe, component or system failure while maneuvering
From U59 · Driggs, ID to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA96FA010
- 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
- 1 · 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
- N71AR
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From U59 · Driggs, IDTo not recorded
- 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- 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
- Wing, bracing strut › Corroded
- Wing, bracing strut › Fatigue
- Wing, bracing strut › Separation
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The aircraft was observed entering a level, counter-clockwise turn approximately 200-300 feet above ground. Witnesses reported observing the right wing separate from the aircraft after approximately three-quarters of the turn, and the aircraft was then observed to descend rapidly to the ground and burn upon impact. Examination of the airframe records indicated that the aircraft's original struts were still installed with a total of 4,945 hours of service and no indication of any significant maintenance. On site examination revealed that the right wing forward lift strut had separated completely at a point approximately eight inches above its inboard end (right main landing gear attach point). Metallurgical examination revealed that the lower inside of the strut at the separation surface was corroded and that fatigue cracking progressed from the corroded area through a portion of the top surface of the strut.
Probable cause
the corrosion, consequent fatigue cracking and ultimate separation of the right wing forward lift strut.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA96FA010
- Event ID
- 20001207X04784
- Case number
- SEA96FA010
- 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: 68872e81886e5ec2a1598458a0d781b3932cbbea7cf6db36f7d7c370e3850796; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:33:05.475Z.