NYC94LA173 · Schleicher ASW15B
Schleicher ASW15B · Accident: undershoot on approach
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC94LA173
- 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
- 0 · 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
Schleicher ASW15B
- Aircraft type
- Schleicher ASW15
- 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
- N827
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern final
- 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
- Undershoot
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Tree(s)
- 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
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT ELECTED TO EXTEND THE DOWNWIND LEG DUE TO POWERED AIRCRAFT TRAFFIC AHEAD ON THE APPROACH. THE POWERED AIRCRAFT SAW THE GLIDER AND DISCONTINUED THE APPROACH, ALLOWING THE GLIDER A CLEAR PATH TO THE RUNWAY. THE GLIDER PILOT ELECTED NOT TO EMPLOY SPOILERS BECAUSE THE DISTANCE TO THE RUNWAY WAS TOO FAR. ACCORDING TO THE PILOT 'WITHIN SECONDS MY ALTITUDE AND SPEED WAS REDUCED.' HE REACTED BY PUSHING FORWARD ON THE CONTROL STICK, TO GAIN SPEED, BUT THE GLIDER DID NOT RESPOND. THE PILOT WROTE HE 'WAS BEING FORCED DOWN FROM ABOVE AT A RAPID RATE' CAUSING HIM TO BELIEVE HE WAS IN A 'VIOLENT' DOWN DRAFT. THE GLIDER STRUCK A TREE WITH THE LEFT WING ABOUT 400 FEET SHORT OF THE RUNWAY.
Probable cause
THE PILOT ALLOWED THE SPEED OF THE GLIDER TO GET TO LOW ON FINAL APPROACH WHICH RESULTED IN A RAPID DESCENT, SUBSEQUENT UNDERSHOOT OF THE RUNWAY, AND IMPACT WITH A TREE. A FACTOR IN THIS ACCIDENT WAS A DOWNDRAFT CONDITION.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC94LA173
- Event ID
- 20001206X02338
- Case number
- NYC94LA173
- 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: b9c30b0f9272909c0bbd20f5b57cf8898affb8a782fb84002b90585e90d18fa1; retrieved 2026-09-23T00:40:56.305Z.