CHI01LA132 · Maule M-7-235B
Maule M-7-235B · Accident: wheels down landing in water
From Wexford County Airport (CAD) to Lake City, MI
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's departure or destination. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI01LA132
- 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
- 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-7-235B
- Aircraft type
- Maule M-7
- 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
- N744LS
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route Possible conflict
- From Wexford County Airport (CAD), Cadillac, MITo Lake City, MI
- 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
- Landing
- 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
- Wheels down landing in water
- 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
- Fluid, hydraulic › Exhaustion
- Hydraulic system, fitting › Separation
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, installation, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane nosed over during the water landing with the wheel extended. The pilot reported that after takeoff from the lake, he was unable to lower the landing gear in preparation for a hard surface landing. He returned to the lake where he recylced the gear and performed emergency procedures to verify the gear was retracted. The pilot reported that he thought the gear was retracted prior to touchdown. He reported that as he slowed the airplane, the force of the water pulled the landing gear down and the airplane nosed over. Inspection of the airplane after the accident revealed that the hydraulic line to the left gear had separated porting the hydraulic fluid. It was determined that the hydraulic line was not properly flared at the fitting.
Probable cause
the improper installation of the left landing gear hydraulic line which allowed it to separate and port the hydraulic fluid. This resulted in the landing gear extending during a water landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI01LA132
- Event ID
- 20010510X00925
- Case number
- CHI01LA132
- 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: 8fb5722d44de6048a1816c87450376b80df33c15f8d6f9e9e2e4579f64f0f341; retrieved 2026-09-21T19:57:56.441Z.