CEN12LA296 · Maule M-7-420AC
Bull Dog Aviation Maule M-7-420AC · Accident: loss of engine power (total) while maneuvering
From Hanover Twnshp, MI to Alpena
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN12LA296
- 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-7-420AC
- 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
- N420RP
- Operator
- Bull Dog Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Hanover Twnshp, MITo Alpena
- 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
- Maneuvering
- 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
- Not determined › Not determined
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 departed from a lake in a seaplane, circled, and flew back over the lake. He then saw another lake nearby and decided to land on it. On the downwind leg of the landing, the engine lost power. During the descent toward the lake, the airplane struck trees next to the shore and subsequently went into the water. The pilot and passenger exited the airplane and swam to shore. The fuel selector was found in the OFF position. Two gallons of fuel were drained from the left tank. The right tank was ruptured when the wing struck the tree, and there was evidence of fuel spray on the tree. An examination of the turbine engine failed to reveal a reason for the loss of power. The fuel pump was tested and met factory specifications. While the main fuel control contained only residual fuel, it also tested in accordance with factory specifications; given the presence of fuel after the accident, the investigation was unable to conclude that this was the cause of the power loss. Further, the propeller governor and overspeed governor tested in accordance with factory specifications and electrical power was applied to the Welden fuel pump, which operated normally.
Probable cause
A total loss of engine power for reasons that could not be determined during an exhaustive postaccident examination of the engine and its components.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN12LA296
- Event ID
- 20120514X50822
- Case number
- CEN12LA296
- 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: b2852b148265f5f198d6ae880a1cadf4ec57d08520bb3ff41fa3874366bf4592; retrieved 2026-09-15T18:06:44.558Z.