GAA16CA468 · Maule M4 220C
Maule M4 220C · Accident: runway excursion during landing
From Talkeetna Airport (TKA) to Talkeetna, AK
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's location. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA16CA468
- 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 M4 220C
- Aircraft type
- Maule M4
- 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
- N40661
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Talkeetna Airport (TKA), Talkeetna, AKTo Talkeetna, AK
- Aircraft age
- About 43 years (built 1973)
- 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 · landing roll
- 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
- Runway excursion
- 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
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot of a tailwheel equipped airplane reported that he was landing on a backcountry airstrip. He reported that after touchdown, about two-thirds of the way down the runway during the landing roll, the wind shifted to a tailwind. He further reported that the airplane over ran the runway, impacted a hill, and nosed over.
The airplane sustained substantial damage to the empennage.
The pilot reported no preaccident mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
According to the pilot the wind was variable at 7-8 knots prior to the accident.
The Federal Aviation Administration has published the Advisory Circular (AC) 91-79A. This AC discusses the hazards associated with runway overruns and the effect of a tailwind on landing distance and states in part:
The pilot must be aware of airspeed during the approach and of the targeted reference landing airspeed (VREF)/airspeed, plus wind gust adjustments, over the runway threshold. An excessive approach speed may result in an excessive speed over the runway's threshold, which may result in landing beyond the intended touchdown point as well as a higher speed from which the pilot must bring the airplane to a stop.
The effect of a tailwind on landing distance is significant and is a factor in determining the landing distance required. Given the airplane will land at a particular airspeed, independent of the wind, the principal effect of a tailwind on operational landing distance is the change in the ground speed at which the airplane touches down.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to recognize and compensate for tailwind conditions during the landing roll, which resulted in a runway overrun and nose over.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA16CA468
- Event ID
- 20160907X12837
- Case number
- GAA16CA468
- 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: fbac004b178cf8e0f7a377c3b7a6e821b83c8fcff791f731cbd210cded7556ba; retrieved 2026-09-16T04:14:07.357Z.