ANC07FA082 · Maule M-5-180C

The airline transport pilot and passenger departed a remote gravel site to scout the area near their hunting camp for sheep. The pilot told his son that they would return in about 30 minutes. Several days later, the pilot's son flagged down a passing airplane, and reported the missing airplane. Searchers located the airplane wreckage, about 4,000 feet elevation, on a steep slope in a canyon 3-4 miles from the hunting camp. The airplane impacted terrain on a steep scree slope, surrounded by high terrain, coming to rest about 200 feet upslope from the bottom of a steep ravine. The airplane wreckage was consumed by fire, but the basic structures remained, and all the major flight control components were present. The airplane impacted the slope at a steep, nose down attitude, coming to rest with the tail down slope, and against a rock outcrop on the right side. The left wing structure had rotated over the top of the fuselage, bending the rudder top to the right, and coming to rest on top of the right wing, consistent with the airplane spinning at impact. The propeller blades had extreme torsional twisting and bending, and chord-wise scratches indicating the production of power at the time of the impact. Given the steep, rising terrain, and the impact signatures on the airplane, it is probable the pilot elected to fly up the valley. In the process, he allowed the airspeed to decay, and stalled the airplane while maneuvering to avoid the rising terrain Due to the remote, hazardous location, the accident airplane was not recovered.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset