ANC01FA084 · Maule M-5-235C
Maule M-5-235C · Accident: loss of control in flight
From Fairbanks International Airport (FAI) to Fairbanks International Airport (FAI)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC01FA084
- 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
- 4 · 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-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
- N9237E
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Fairbanks International Airport (FAI), Fairbanks, AKTo Fairbanks International Airport (FAI), Fairbanks, AK
- 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
- Unknown
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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
- Stall
- 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
- Pilot in command › Stall, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The certificated commercial pilot, with three passengers aboard, departed on a cross-country personal flight through mountainous terrain, in a float-equipped airplane. The purpose of the flight was to show the three passengers some Alaskan scenery. The route of flight included a stop at a remote lake, frequently visited by the pilot. About 6 hours after departure, an ELT signal was received, and an aerial search was initiated. The wreckage was located in an area of mountainous terrain, and along the airplane's anticipated return flight route, between the remote lake and the airplane's home base airport. A State of Alaska, Fish and Wildlife Protection Officer involved in the search, reported that after locating the wreckage, he landed his wheel-equipped airplane along a ridgeline, located about 1,000 feet above the wreckage site. During the approach for landing, he encountered winds out of the southeast, estimated to be 17 to 20 knots. He added that the location of the accident airplane's wreckage was situated on the downwind side of the mountainous terrain. Postaccident investigation revealed that the nose of the airplane impacted in a near vertical attitude, on the soft, tundra-covered terrain. No mechanical anomalies were noted with the airframe or engine.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadvertent stall of the airplane during an unknown phase of flight.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC01FA084
- Event ID
- 20010813X01678
- Case number
- ANC01FA084
- 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, coordinates. 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: a723690e45df456f90c4cc9e23a34dd5d4b2f9fd329c772a851a4f0131d4e88c; retrieved 2026-09-20T20:27:40.309Z.