LAX95LA184 · Schweizer SGS 2-33A
Schweizer SGS 2-33A · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water while maneuvering
From Kawaihapai Airfield (PHDH) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX95LA184
- 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
Schweizer SGS 2-33A
- Aircraft type
- Schweizer SGS-2
- 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
- N7768S
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Kawaihapai Airfield (PHDH)To 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
- 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
- In flight collision with terrain/water
- 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 › Altitude/clearance, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
AFTER BEING TOWED TO AN ALTITUDE OF 1,000 FEET MSL, THE PILOT INITIALLY CLIMBED AN ADDITIONAL 100 FEET. ABOUT 5 MINUTES LATER HE ENCOUNTERED AN AREA WHICH WAS NOT GENERATING ANY LIFT AND DECIDED TO TURN BACK TOWARD THE AIRPORT. WHILE FLYING AN UPWIND COURSE, WHICH WAS IN CLOSE PROXIMITY AND NEARLY PARALLEL TO THE NORTH SIDE OF A NEARBY RIDGE LINE, THE GLIDER ENCOUNTERED AN UNEXPECTED DOWNDRAFT. UNABLE TO MANEUVER OUT OF THE CONDITION, THE GLIDER WAS FORCED DOWN, IMPACTING STEEP, ROCKY TERRAIN. THE PILOT REPORTED THAT THE PREVAILING WINDS AT THE ACCIDENT SITE WERE GUSTING FROM THE SOUTHEAST.
Probable cause
the pilot's attempted flight in close proximity to terrain under gusty wind conditions at an inadequate terrain clearance altitude.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX95LA184
- Event ID
- 20001207X03488
- Case number
- LAX95LA184
- 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 1995-05-11.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 62a21625af7ad58faf0a712b4b2f8a0d7aed415538ccca406f5aec5adda96e22; retrieved 2026-09-21T22:19:30.385Z.