LAX95LA123 · Burkhart Grob G102 ASTIR CS G102 ASTIR
Burkhart Grob G102 ASTIR CS G102 ASTIR · Accident: in flight encounter with weather during initial climb
From 0L7 to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX95LA123
- 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 G102 ASTIR CS G102 ASTIR
- Aircraft type
- Grob G102
- 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
- N57GE
- Operator
- Ralph D. Biesemeyer · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 0L7To 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- In flight encounter with weather
- 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
- Stall/mush
- 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 › Airspeed, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Flight into known adverse weather, attempted
- Pilot in command › Stall/mush, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THUNDERSTORMS AND LIGHTNING WERE OBSERVED WEST OF THE AIRPORT. GROUND WITNESSES REPORTED THAT THE GLIDER ACHIEVED ABOUT 300 FEET AGL DURING THE TAKEOFF ON RUNWAY 20 BY AUTO TOW. INSTEAD OF COMPLETING A NORMAL PITCH UP TO INCREASE ALTITUDE, THE PILOT RELEASED THE TOW LINE, FLEW TO THE DEPARTURE END OF THE RUNWAY IN A DESCENT, AND WAS PERFORMING A 270-DEGREE LEFT TURN TO LAND ON A SHORT CROSSWIND RUNWAY WHEN THE LEFT WING TIP DRUG THE GROUND. THE GLIDER THEN CARTWHEELED. THE PILOT SAID HE WAS AWARE OF THE THUNDERSTORM ACTIVITY TO THE WEST OF THE RUNWAY, BUT ELECTED TO DO A SHORT FLIGHT. HE SAID THE TAKEOFF WAS NORMAL UNTIL THE GLIDER ACHIEVED 300 FEET AGL WHEN HE ENCOUNTERED A SUDDEN DOWNWIND CONDITION. DURING THE ATTEMPT TO RETURN TO THE AIRPORT, HE WAS UNABLE TO MAINTAIN AIRSPEED AND ALTITUDE DURING THE TURN AND THE LEFT WING TIP INADVERTENTLY CONTACTED THE GROUND.
Probable cause
the pilot's decision to fly in known adverse weather conditions which resulted in a wind shear encounter at low altitude during the takeoff initial climb.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX95LA123
- Event ID
- 20001207X03005
- Case number
- LAX95LA123
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1995-02-27.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 445b3885ae9c557aa212b555518ed7142db2791973a3802df748db906bed9a0b; retrieved 2026-09-21T22:22:41.053Z.