NTSB Factual Report

On August 15, 2007, about 1630 Alaska daylight time, a Maule M-7-235 airplane, N56568, sustained substantial damage when it nosed over during takeoff from the Chena Marina Airport, Fairbanks, Alaska. The airplane was being operated as a visual flight rules (VFR) local area instructional flight under Title 14, CFR Part 91 when the accident occurred. The certificated flight instructor (CFI) sustained serious injuries, and the private pilot sustained minor injuries. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed at the time of the accident, and no flight plan was filed.

A Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) airworthiness inspector from the Fairbanks Flight Standards District Office responded to the accident scene shortly after the accident, and examined the airplane prior to recovery efforts. The FAA inspector reported that rescue personnel who had talked to the pilot shortly after the accident, before he was transported to the hospital, said that the pilot told them that he was beginning his takeoff run, and as soon as the control yoke was pulled aft to fly off the runway, the airplane nosed over. The airplane came to rest inverted, sustaining substantial damage to the wings, vertical stabilizer, and both wing lift-struts.

The FAA inspector reported that a postaccident inspection revealed the elevator cables were connected backwards, reversing the control yoke actions, and resulting in down elevator when the yoke was pulled aft. He said that a review of the airplane's maintenance logs disclosed that the airplane's elevator cables had been replaced during a previous annual inspection.

In his written statement to the NTSB dated September 15, 2007, the CFI reported that at the time of the accident, he was giving a flight review to the airplane's owner, a private pilot. He said that the accident airplane had two annual inspections within the last two years, during which the elevator had been removed and replaced. The airplane had not been flown since either of the annual inspections. The most recent annual inspection was on August 9, 2007, 6 days before the accident. The CFI reported that he, along with the private pilot, did a preflight inspection of the airplane before the accident flight, but he said that he did not specifically check for the correct travel of the airplane's elevator. He wrote, in part: "The elevator is hard or impossible to see while buckled in the aircraft, but [it] should have been discovered."

NTSB Probable Cause

The reversal of the elevator control cables by maintenance personnel, and the inadequate preflight inspection by the flight instructor and dual student.