ERA11FA443 · Maule M-7-235
Maule M-7-235 · Accident: aerodynamic stall/spin on approach
From Potomac Airfield (VKX) to Warrenton Air Park (7VG0)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA11FA443
- 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
- 2 · 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-7-235
- 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
- N747GL
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Potomac Airfield (VKX), Friendly, MDTo Warrenton Air Park (7VG0), Warrenton, VA
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern base
- 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
- Aerodynamic stall/spin
- 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 › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane was observed by several witnesses entering the airport traffic pattern. Two witnesses observed the airplane bank to the left while turning from the base leg to final approach, stall, and enter an uncontrolled descent. A postaccident examination of the airplane and engine revealed no evidence of any preimpact failure or malfunction. A certified flight instructor, who had flown recently with the accident pilot, reported that, on several occasions, the accident pilot performed turns in the traffic pattern at excessive bank angles. In addition, during the most recent flight with the pilot, the pilot did not properly recover the airplane after hearing the stall warning horn and had to be instructed on how to recover from the impending stall. Based on the witness reports of the airplane’s steep bank angle and sudden decrease in pitch attitude, it is likely the pilot inadvertently stalled the airplane during the base-to-final turn in the traffic pattern.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate airspeed and excessive bank angle while maneuvering for landing, which resulted in an aerodynamic stall.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA11FA443
- Event ID
- 20110807X61429
- Case number
- ERA11FA443
- 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. 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: a6a304ccc56465e0324f1e676edcacd6afc766f7a67581d51d07f6e11e0da116; retrieved 2026-09-13T21:42:07.225Z.