WPR26LA075 · Maule M-5-235C
Maule M-5-235C · Accident: system/component malfunction/failure (non-power) during landing
From Lance Creek, WY to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR26LA075
- 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
- N56500
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Lance Creek, WYTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 43 years (built 1983)
- 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
- System/component malfunction/failure (non-power)
- 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 systems
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 was conducting a personal flight and elected to land on a grass strip located on a friend’s property. Prior to landing, the pilot performed several low passes to assess the landing area. The pilot stated that the approach and touchdown were normal. During the landing rollt, as he applied brakes, the airplane abruptly yawed right and nosed over, which resulted in substantial damage to the fuselage, lift struts, vertical stabilizer, and rudder. Postaccident examination of the airplane by the pilot and a mechanic revealed that the right wheel was locked, while the left wheel rotated freely. Further examination by the mechanic revealed that cabin floor carpet had migrated upward and was lodged between the right brake master cylinder and the parking brake locking lever, which resulted in the right wheel parking brake being engaged.
Probable cause
The loss of directional control and subsequent nose over due to the inadvertent engagement of the right wheel parking brake as a result of cabin floor carpeting migrating between the right brake master cylinder and parking brake locking lever.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR26LA075
- Event ID
- 20260106202254
- Case number
- WPR26LA075
- 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: 6734424bc75df19e106fbe63c498a460a48a7feb227cb577377e89d770a1192f; retrieved 2026-09-16T20:39:02.192Z.