CEN24LA081 · Maule M-6-235
Taf Aerial Services Maule M-6-235 · Accident: loss of control on ground during landing
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN24LA081
- 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-6-235
- Aircraft type
- Maule M-6
- 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
- N71MS
- Operator
- Taf Aerial Services
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 39 years (built 1984)
- 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
- Loss of control on ground
- 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
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During the landing attempt with a direct left crosswind in the tailwheel-equipped airplane, the pilot reported he heard a pop, and the airplane veered to the right. The pilot attempted to make a correction to the left to maintain airplane control. The pilot felt the empennage lift and the propeller struck the runway. The right main landing gear collapsed, the right wing struck the runway, and the airplane pivoted around the left main landing gear coming to rest on the runway. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the right wing and wing struts. According to a mechanic, postaccident examination revealed fractures to the landing gear structure that were consistent with an abnormal sideload and subsequent ground loop. No other mechanical failures or malfunctions were reported with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation. At the time of the accident, the pilot was landing the airplane on runway 34 with wind from 250° at 12 knots and gusting to 16 knots.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain directional control during landing in crosswind conditions, which resulted in a ground loop on the runway.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN24LA081
- Event ID
- 20240104193605
- Case number
- CEN24LA081
- 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, 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: 53351ed7fa6b5ddfad624a9fd07ba4b1ed3b85e0b3540b39ffadfb86ba630159; retrieved 2026-09-16T18:24:44.958Z.