GAA18CA311 · Maule M5 235C
Maule M5 235C · Accident: loss of control in flight during landing
From Lewiston, ID (private airstrip) to Lewiston, ID (private airstrip)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA18CA311
- 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 M5 235C
- Aircraft type
- Maule M5
- 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
- N5634Y
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Lewiston, ID (private airstrip)To Lewiston, ID (private airstrip)
- Aircraft age
- About 39 years (built 1979)
- 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
- 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 control in flight
- 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 pilot of the tailwheel-equipped airplane reported that he was aligned with the right edge of the 80-ft-wide private, grass airstrip during short final. The pilot slipped the airplane to the left, but the right main landing gear contacted the tall wheat field that bordered the runway, and the airplane began to veer right. He added that the airplane continued to the right and subsequently nosed over.
The airplane sustained substantial damage to the right lift strut.
The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical failures or malfunctions with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
The pilot indicated that he should have initiated an immediate go-around procedure once he realized the approach was not normal.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain the runway centerline and his subsequent decision to not perform a go-around, which resulted in the main landing gear contacting tall wheat and a subsequent loss of control.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA18CA311
- Event ID
- 20180530X35732
- Case number
- GAA18CA311
- 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 2018-05-28.
- API snapshot SHA-256: d5d1ebb8e329a51428962948ee6b9ea084972973eb6f1e0f73a3e2602242329f; retrieved 2026-09-16T07:20:16.631Z.