ATL94FA166 · Schweizer SGS 1-34R
Birmingham Soaring Society Schweizer SGS 1-34R · Accident: airframe, component or system failure while maneuvering
From 29A · Montevallo, AL to 29A · AL
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL94FA166
- 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
- 1 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- 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
Schweizer SGS 1-34R
- Aircraft type
- Schweizer SGS-1
- Category
- Glider
- 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
- N1132S
- Operator
- Birmingham Soaring Society
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 29A · Montevallo, ALTo 29A · AL
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- 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
- Maneuvering
- First occurrenceThe 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Design stress limits of aircraft, exceeded
- Wing, spar › Failure, total
- Wing, spar › Overload
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT WAS ON A LOCAL FLIGHT, ABOUT TWO MILES NORTHWEST OF THE DEPARTURE AIRPORT. WITNESSES HEARD A LOUD NOISE, THEN OBSERVED A WING SEPARATE FROM THE GLIDER, WHILE THE GLIDER WAS MANEUVERING. THE MAIN WRECKAGE WAS FOUND IN A WOODED AREA, ABOUT 1,000 FEET EAST OF WHERE THE SEPARATED LEFT WING WAS LOCATED. FRACTURE EXAMINATION OF THE LEFT WING SPAR SHOWED EVIDENCE OF OVERLOAD. THERE WAS ALSO EVIDENCE OF HIGH G-LOADING ON THE WING SKIN AND SPAR CARRY THROUGH AREAS. PRIOR TO THE ACCIDENT, THE PILOT HAD LOGGED 53 HOURS OF FLYING TIME IN GLIDERS (153 FLIGHTS). HE HAD FLOWN THE SGS 1-34R ON TWO OCCASIONS PRIOR TO THE ACCIDENT, WITH A TOTAL FLIGHT TIME OF .8 HOURS. THE MAJORITY OF HIS FLYING TIME WAS LOGGED IN THE SGS 2-33.
Probable cause
THE PILOT EXCEEDING THE DESIGN STRESS LIMITS OF THE AIRCRAFT, RESULTING IN AN OVERLOAD FAILURE OF THE WING SPAR, AND SEPARATION OF THE LEFT WING FROM THE AIRCRAFT. A FACTOR WAS THE PILOT'S LACK OF TOTAL FLYING EXPERIENCE IN THIS MODEL OF AIRCRAFT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL94FA166
- Event ID
- 20001206X01932
- Case number
- ATL94FA166
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
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. 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: c3b6bb68741e750004d897402527a808f5e21e4c9c161e0534afa74c21f42055; retrieved 2026-09-21T00:01:49.820Z.