WPR22LA262 · Maule M-5-235C
Maule M-5-235C · Accident: loss of engine power (total) on approach
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR22LA262
- 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
- Event fatalities
- Unknown
- 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-5-235C
- Aircraft type
- Maule M-5
- 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
- N6224M
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 44 years (built 1978)
- 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 downwind
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft power plant
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During the first flight after the installation of avionics, and an overhauled engine, the engine started to lose power in the traffic pattern. The pilot continued to fly straight in the downwind leg of the traffic pattern and attempted to troubleshoot the problem. Despite his actions, he was unable to regain engine power and subsequently pitched for best glide and made a 180° right turn to land on the runway. By this time, the airplane had traveled too far on the downwind leg, and the airplane landed short of the runway. Postaccident examination of the engine’s single-drive dual magneto revealed that the right magneto capacitor wire was attached utilizing an automotive terminal, however, the wire had separated from the crimped portion of the terminal. Additionally, the left magneto P-lead had areas of exposed wire, which grounded the left magneto and prevented its operation. The compounded anomalies, on both the left and right magnetos, would have resulted in a total loss of engine power.
Probable cause
A loss of engine power due to degraded and incorrectly maintained ignition system components. Contributing to the accident was the pilot’s delay in turning the airplane towards the runway when the engine began to lose power.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR22LA262
- Event ID
- 20220720105536
- Case number
- WPR22LA262
- 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, cause areas. 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: 3fa6d50381435f808d61d0a5f0c31cbb1687a35074a3c7760f66e506a8b9d0f0; retrieved 2026-09-16T15:29:21.346Z.