BFO93FA178 · Maule M-4-210C
Maule M-4-210C · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water en route
From an unrecorded airport to Eagle's Nest Airport (W13)
Event
- NTSB case
- BFO93FA178
- 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-4-210C
- Aircraft type
- Maule M-4
- 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
- N2026U
- Operator
- Ridge and Valley Soaring
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Eagle's Nest Airport (W13), Waynesboro, VA
- 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 · climb to 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 terrain/water
- 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
- Pilot in command › Preflight planning/preparation, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT OF AN AIRPLANE INVOLVED IN A GLIDER TOW OPERATION WAS ATTEMPTING TO TOW A GLIDER OUT OF A FIELD WHEN THE AIRPLANE STRUCK AN EMBANKMENT ALONG THE INTERSTATE HIGHWAY AND NOSED OVER. THE GLIDER PILOT REPORTED THAT THE FLIGHT HAD DEPARTED EARLIER FROM ANOTHER FIELD, AND DUE TO A DESCENDING TURN MADE BY THE TOW AIRPLANE TO AVOID SOME CLOUDS, HE DISCONNECTED HIS GLIDER AND LANDED SAFELY IN A FIELD. THE PILOT OF THE TOW AIRPLANE RADIOED THE GLIDER PILOT AND TOLD HIM THAT HE WOULD RETURN TO THE FIELD TO TOW THE GLIDER OUT OF THE FIELD. THE TOW AIRPLANE PILOT OVERFLEW THE FIELD AND LANDED SUCCESSFULLY. ACCORDING TO THE GLIDER PILOT, BOTH PILOTS WALKED THE FIELD TO MAKE A DETERMINATION AS TO WHETHER THERE WAS ENOUGH TAKEOFF DISTANCE FOR TOWING. THE GLIDER PILOT STATED THAT THERE WAS A TAILWIND, BUT IT WAS AGREED UPON BY BOTH PILOTS THAT THERE WAS ENOUGH TAKEOFF DISTANCE. EXAMINATION OF THE AIRPLANE DID NOT DISCLOSE EVIDENCE OF MECHANICAL MALFUNCTION.
Probable cause
INADEQUATE PREFLIGHT BY THE PILOT WHICH RESULTED IN INADEQUATE ALTITUDE TO CLEAR THE EMBANKMENT DURING THE INITIAL CLIMB. FACTORS IN THIS ACCIDENT WERE A TAILWIND ON TAKEOFF AND RISING TERRAIN AT THE DEPARTURE END OF THE GRASS AIRSTRIP.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record BFO93FA178
- Event ID
- 20001211X13321
- Case number
- BFO93FA178
- 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: 37a6a8004df2bad1f956c64db86cf44f22d5254cd911bd09210c8da4ae8795d4; retrieved 2026-09-21T00:23:10.219Z.