NYC95LA040 · Burkhart Grob 103A
Burkhart Grob 103A · Accident: undershoot on approach
From 1N7 to Blairstown Airport (1N7)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC95LA040
- 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
Burkhart Grob 103A
- Aircraft type
- Grob 103
- 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
- N858BG
- Operator
- Eastern Mountain Soaring
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 1N7To Blairstown Airport (1N7), NJ
- 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
- 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 › Proper descent rate, not maintained
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Blairstown, NJ, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE GLIDER PILOT ENTERED THE DOWNWIND, WITH HIS ALTITUDE ABOUT 100 FT BELOW HIS DESIRED ALTITUDE. ON FINAL, HE ENCOUNTERED SOME LIFT AND ATTEMPTED TO CONTINUE THE DESCENT. THE LIFT ALSO CAUSED THE GLIDER TO BECOME MISALIGNED WITH THE RUNWAY. THE PILOT WAS FLYING FROM THE REAR SEAT WITH A PILOT RATED PASSENGER IN THE FRONT SEAT. HE HAD DIFFICULTY IN SEEING THE RUNWAY DUE TO THE PASSENGER IN THE FRONT SEAT. DURING THE REALIGNMENT, THE GLIDER STARTED TO SINK AND BY THE TIME THE PILOT REALIZED THIS, THE GLIDER WAS TOO LOW TO REACH THE RUNWAY. THE GLIDER BOUNCED OFF A SMALL RISE PRIOR TO THE RUNWAY. THE LEFT WING THEN STRUCK A SMALL TREE AND THE GLIDER TOUCHED DOWN AGAIN, WITH THE NOSE APPROXIMATELY 40 DEGREE LEFT.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain the proper descent rate.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC95LA040
- Event ID
- 20001206X02788
- Case number
- NYC95LA040
- 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: f2ea234a8d61e9bc85e98066f17b3fe1ebe3344a9f55a9468329d124dde2d1ef; retrieved 2026-09-23T00:24:53.983Z.