SEA04LA118 · Maule M-7-235C
Maule M-7-235C · Accident: gear collapsed during landing
From Pierre Regional Airport (PIR) to Miles City Airport - Frank Wiley Field (MLS)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA04LA118
- 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
- N1936P
- Operator
- Walter Bowman
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Pierre Regional Airport (PIR), Pierre, SDTo Miles City Airport - Frank Wiley Field (MLS), Miles City, MT
- 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
- Gear collapsed
- 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
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 reported that during the landing roll on runway 30, the aircraft started to veer to the left. The pilot attempted corrective action with right rudder control however, he felt a vibration in the tailwheel like it was "skidding" as the aircraft continued to the left. The right main tire came loose from the rim and the left main landing gear failed at the fuselage attached points. During these actions, both wing tips contacted the runway surface. The aircraft came to rest with the left wing on the runway surface. Wing skin wrinkles were noted on the upper surface, and a rivet seam line was pulled apart on the lower surface. The left side step was pushed up into the floor board area, and the occupant seat structure was damaged. The right side wing tip was damaged as well as the outboard aileron tip. Inspection of the aircraft by a Federal Aviation Administration Inspector reported that the left side main wheel was flat with a small puncture hole noted on the outer rim. The right side main tire was also flat and the rim was damaged from side loading contact with the runway surface. The tailwheel was intact and free to rotate.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain directional control of the aircraft during the landing roll resulting in a main landing gear collapse.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA04LA118
- Event ID
- 20040702X00903
- Case number
- SEA04LA118
- 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: 053ef16b853079d6e04ce4b42be98c70ccb573845d5423d4a494ac199e03444d; retrieved 2026-09-22T07:14:50.979Z.