SEA92FA222 · Maule M-5-235C
Maule M-5-235C · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water while maneuvering
From Jackson Hole Airport (JAC) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA92FA222
- 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
- 3 · 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
- Unknown
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
- N19AR
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Jackson Hole Airport (JAC), Jackson, WYTo 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
- 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/clearance, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Compensation for wind conditions, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane departed on a grizzly bear tracking flight. The flight involved maneuvering in close proximity to mountainous terrain. Strong, gusty winds and turbulence prevailed at the time of the accident. The winds were from the southwest. The airplane impacted trees and terrain while flying from a westerly direction along a mountain ridge beneath a 10,870-foot tall peak. The wreckage was distributed along a 200-foot path and the impact angle was estimated to be about 35 degrees. A fuel-fed ground fire was evident. No preimpact mechanical malfunctions associated with the engine or airframe were found.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain clearance and altitude from terrain while maneuvering, and his failure to adequately compensate for the wind conditions. Factors contributing to the accident are terrain-induced turbulence, unfavorable winds, gusty high winds, and low altitude flight.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA92FA222
- Event ID
- 20001212X18387
- Case number
- SEA92FA222
- 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: b90dee4ec37c5ff0159d70618fdad372d3323a8ab4a51ad9f9cfc8b04dd700e3; retrieved 2026-09-21T01:30:56.793Z.