ANC08LA130 · Maule M-5-210C
Maule M-5-210C · Accident: loss of engine power (total) during initial climb
From Delta Junction, AK to Delta Junction, AK
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC08LA130
- 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-5-210C
- 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
- N289X
- Operator
- Hanson Shanen D
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Delta Junction, AKTo Delta Junction, AK
- 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
- Initial climb
- Defining eventThe 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 (total)
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft power plant
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Experience/knowledge
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The non-certificated pilot was taking off on a personal local flight when the accident occurred. The pilot said that he taxied the length of the runway three times prior to the attempted takeoff. He said that during the takeoff/initial climb the engine lost power, and the airplane descended, impacting on a roadway and that there was structural damage to the wings and fuselage. Initially the pilot said that he thought carburetor ice was responsible for the loss of power, but then thought someone might have tampered with his fuel supply. He also noted that there may be some issues with his pilot's certificate. He said there were no mechanical problems with the airplane prior to the accident. A Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) inspector interviewed the pilot and reported that the pilot said that he inadvertently pulled the mixture when the engine lost partial power, thinking it was the carburetor heat. The inspector also recovered about 2 ounces of fuel from the accident airplane's gascolator. The fuel was light blue in color, and smelled like aviation fuel. The sample appeared clear, and no impurities, water, or other contaminants were visible. The sample was tested for the presence of water using water paste, and no water was found. According to FAA records, the pilot did not have a student pilot or any other pilot certificates.
Probable cause
A total loss of engine power during takeoff due to the non-certificated pilot's inadvertent selection of the mixture control instead of the carburetor heat and his lack of training/qualification.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC08LA130
- Event ID
- 20081024X02618
- Case number
- ANC08LA130
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
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: 504d7a6bafb58ea01fe1f3369ed5438f72278ba9b0ce2ea1249711436786dedc; retrieved 2026-09-15T10:29:57.277Z.