FTW96LA201 · Schweizer SGS-233A
Schweizer SGS-233A · Accident: forced landing during takeoff
From TE33 to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW96LA201
- 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-233A
- Aircraft type
- Schweizer SGS-233
- 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
- N7773S
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From TE33To 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
- Takeoff · rejected takeoff
- 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
- Forced landing
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- None
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, not obtained
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Odessa, TX, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
The FAA inspector (pilot-in-command) was receiving a flight check to remove the commercial pilot 'aero tow only' limitation by completing several ground tow launches. Following five successful ground tow launches, the FAA inspector administering the flight check conducted a discussion to review emergency procedures with the applicant. During the sixth ground tow launch, when the airspeed had accelerated to 45 knots, the pitch attitude had attained 45 degrees, at an altitude of about 160 feet above the ground, the FAA inspector administering the flight check, released the tow line to abort the launch. The FAA inspector (PIC) receiving the flight check pushed the glider nose forward; however, the airspeed did not increase to the 50 knots needed for a landing flare. The glider landed hard, bounced, and subsequently touched down on the runway. Both pilots reported that the glider encountered 'a pocket of sinking air.'
Probable cause
the pilot's failure to obtain the required airspeed resulting in a hard landing. A factor was the lack of thermal lift.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW96LA201
- Event ID
- 20001208X05754
- Case number
- FTW96LA201
- 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, damage. 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: 52f51da27b1f27190daf16cb3d5b40b8e89f323a773c373001d3ab4d67164480; retrieved 2026-09-21T12:47:02.742Z.