ATL03FA111 · Maule M-5-235C
Maule M-5-235C · Accident: loss of engine power on approach
From Bomar Field / Shelbyville Municipal Airport (SYI) to River Runway Airport (TN68)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL03FA111
- 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
- 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
- N555MR
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Bomar Field / Shelbyville Municipal Airport (SYI), Shelbyville, TNTo River Runway Airport (TN68), Rockvale, TN
- 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
- Approach · VFR go-around
- 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 engine power
- 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
- Tree(s)
- 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 › Carburetor heat, not used
- Weather condition › Carburetor icing conditions
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to a witness, the airplane experienced a gradual loss of engine power during a go-around. As the airplane was returning to land after the go-around, other witnesses reported hearing the engine "shut off and then start back up." The witnesses then observed the airplane collide with trees and terrain, and they saw black smoke rising from the wreckage. The airplane came to rest and burned on a westerly heading approximately 0.6 nautical miles from the airstrip. Examination of the accident site revealed that the propeller, engine, cockpit, cabin, empennage, horizontal stabilizers, elevators, rudder, and vertical stabilizer remained intact by their tubular steel frames. Examination of the engine revealed it was damaged on all sides. There was no fuel found in the engine, and the carburetor heat was in the off position. Nothing was found during the course of the investigation that would have precluded the engine from producing power. The reported temperature at an airport located about 30 miles to the north of the accident site was 81-degrees Fahrenheit and the dew point was 57 degrees Fahrenheit. According to the icing probability chart, the reported weather conditions were favorable for the formation of carburetor ice; however, the investigation could not determine whether carburetor icing was present in the engine at the time of the accident. (This report was modified on June 16, 2009)
Probable cause
Loss of engine power for undetermined reasons.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL03FA111
- Event ID
- 20030627X00966
- Case number
- ATL03FA111
- 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: c8d7fbd3251a33478a224414eb8e01195e73a73b7e04afedc1ea548b5a265aa5; retrieved 2026-09-20T19:08:11.020Z.