SEA03LA109 · Maule M-7-235C
Maule M-7-235C · Accident: on ground/water collision with terrain/water during landing
From Oliver Airport (CAU3) to Grant County International Airport (KMWH)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA03LA109
- 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-7-235C
- 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
- C-FCDM
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Oliver Airport (CAU3), Oliver, B.C.To Grant County International Airport (KMWH), Moses Lake, WA
- 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
- On ground/water 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Compensation for wind conditions, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
When the pilot first contacted the tower, they cleared him to land on runway 14 Left. Because the Automatic Terminal Information Service (ATIS) indicated the winds were coming from the southwest, he asked the tower what the current winds were. The tower controller told him the winds were from 240 degrees at approximately six knots, and then asked if he would like to land on runway 22. After the pilot answered affirmatively, he was cleared to land on runway 22. While he was on final, the pilot noticed there was a strong right quartering headwind. In an attempt to compensate for the wind conditions, the pilot elected to keep the right wing low during the landing flare, necessitating an initial touchdown on the right main gear. Although the touchdown in this manner was successful, during the landing roll, when the pilot lowered the left main gear to the runway, the right wing lifted into the air, and the left wing contacted the runway surface. The pilot said he believed the aircraft encountered a wind gust just as he lowered the left wheel to the runway surface, and he further stated that he did not feel there were any problems with the aircraft's flight controls or tailwheel steering systems.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate compensation for wind conditions during the landing roll. Factors include gusty crosswinds.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA03LA109
- Event ID
- 20030714X01092
- Case number
- SEA03LA109
- 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: e49248e22a965a6c8dba13b30ecd86a296e35396e0c49fe30e92293994578e65; retrieved 2026-09-22T09:07:31.259Z.