MIA02LA056 · Maule M-7-235B
Maule M-7-235B · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during landing
From Key West International Airport (KEYW) to Sarasota Bradenton International Airport (KSRQ)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA02LA056
- 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
- N235AL
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Key West International Airport (KEYW), Key West, FLTo Sarasota Bradenton International Airport (KSRQ), Sarasota, FL
- 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 · landing roll
- 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 on ground/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
- Pilot in command › Directional control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, poor
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated that he flew the airplane and three passengers down to Key West, Florida, the day before; one of the passengers was the owner of the airplane, but is not a pilot. The flight departed to return and when southeast of the airport, the pilot cancelled the instrument clearance. He reported that the wind was from 200 degrees at 10 to 15 knots, and landings were being conducted on runways 14 and 22. The flight was vectored for a landing on runway 14, and landed first on the right main landing gear and tailwheel due to the crosswind from the right. During the landing roll with full right aileron and left rudder input applied, the airplane ground looped to the right. The pilot further reported that he did not ask to land on runway 22 and that the wind was turbulent due to "trees and a newly constructed noise barrier on the upwind side of that runway." He further stated that the situation could have been prevented if he had insisted on landing on runway 22 which was the favored runway based on the wind direction, and there was no mechanical failure or malfunction.
Probable cause
The poor in-flight planning decision by the pilot-in-command for his failure to request the runway most aligned with the wind and his failure to maintain directional control during the landing roll.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA02LA056
- Event ID
- 20020201X00159
- Case number
- MIA02LA056
- 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: e07e5e4e5bfa8dc9c7eae4e0886a4645dbddab34ac4d8f96f2cc38758d6629bc; retrieved 2026-09-22T11:11:34.659Z.