LAX95LA215 · Issoire-Aviation PIK-30
Issoire-Aviation PIK-30 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water en route
From Minden-Tahoe Airport (MEV) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX95LA215
- 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
Issoire-Aviation PIK-30
- Aircraft type
- Issoire PIK-30
- 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
- N30PK
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Minden-Tahoe Airport (MEV), Minden, NVTo 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
- En route · cruise
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Remedial action, delayed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
FAA INSPECTORS EXAMINED THE GLIDER AND INTERVIEWED PERSONS WITH KNOWLEDGE ABOUT THE ACCIDENT. THE GLIDER WAS TAKING PART IN A SOARING COMPETITION. STRONG UP AND DOWNDRAFTS, WITH WINDS AS HIGH AS 34 KNOTS, WERE REPORTED IN THE AREA OF THE ACCIDENT. THE PILOT WAS EXPERIENCING DIFFICULTY MAINTAINING ADEQUATE TERRAIN CLEARANCE DUE TO THE DOWNDRAFTS, AND WAS IN THE PROCESS OF MANUALLY EXTENDING THE ENGINE FROM ITS FUSELAGE STORAGE LOCATION WHEN THE GLIDER COLLIDED WITH THE TERRAIN. THE INSPECTORS REPORTED THAT THE ENGINE IS STORED IN A FUSELAGE BAY BEHIND THE PILOT'S SEAT AND MUST BE EXTENDED BY USE OF A HANDCRANK LOCATED ON THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE COCKPIT. THE ENGINE WAS FOUND ABOUT HALFWAY EXTENDED FROM ITS STORAGE BAY. FROM THE INITIAL GROUND CONTACT POINT TO THE GLIDER, THE INSPECTORS MEASURED A 20-FOOT-LONG GROUND SCAR. VERTICAL CRUSH DAMAGE WAS NOTED TO THE BOTTOM OF THE GLIDER. NO CONTROL SYSTEM MALFUNCTIONS WERE OBSERVED DURING THE EXAMINATION.
Probable cause
the pilot's delayed decision to extend and use the engine to maintain adequate terrain clearance after encountering downdrafts.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX95LA215
- Event ID
- 20001207X03748
- Case number
- LAX95LA215
- 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: 87a3844404ff631bed2a933ec7fdfa084a2e1a9df03f10b7e035cdabfe9e7f58; retrieved 2026-09-21T13:13:39.171Z.