ANC09CA044 · Maule M-4-220C
Maule M-4-220C · Accident: abnormal runway contact during landing
From Chena Marina Airport (AK28) to Nenana Municipal Airport (ENN)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC09CA044
- 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-4-220C
- Aircraft type
- Maule M-4
- 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
- N2031U
- Operator
- Thomas Payer
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Chena Marina Airport (AK28), Fairbanks, AKTo Nenana Municipal Airport (ENN), Nenana, 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
- Landing · flare/touchdown
- 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
- Abnormal runway contact
- 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 oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The solo private pilot reported he was landing a tailwheel-equipped airplane on a dry hard-surfaced runway, at the completion of a Title 14, Code of Federal Regulations Part 91 personal flight. He said that during touchdown the airplane bounced slightly and he added engine power to cushion the landing. As the airplane touched down again, a gust of wind pushed the airplane's tail to the left, and the airplane ground looped to the right. The airplane’s left main landing gear leg collapsed, and the left wing struck the ground. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the left wing and fuselage. The pilot said there were no preaccident mechanical problems with the airplane, and noted in his report to the NTSB that the airplane had recently been converted from skis to wheels. He said that he should have flown with a flight instructor before attempting a flight in a wheel-equipped airplane, or selected a grass or gravel landing site.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain directional control while landing, resulting in a ground loop and substantial damage to the airplane.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC09CA044
- Event ID
- 20090518X51622
- Case number
- ANC09CA044
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2009-05-17.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 7587e5637c8ab3ec43dc13a9b3dea75cfba744131d0f23af4a5d64ff6b66720f; retrieved 2026-09-15T11:04:43.601Z.