LAX96LA218 · Schweizer 1-24
Schweizer 1-24 · Accident: on ground/water collision with object during landing
From Mountain Valley Airport (L94) to an unrecorded destination
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's aircraft involved. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX96LA218
- 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 1-24 Narrative disagrees
- Aircraft type
- Schweizer 1
- 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
- N91888
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Mountain Valley Airport (L94), CATo 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
- Landing · landing roll
- 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
- On ground/water collision with object
- 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 › Directional control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The glider pilot was inbound to land on the glider runway. Two gliders were in position for launch from the mid-runway launch point. The pilot decided to land in a grass covered area between the glider runway and the powered aircraft runway. Witnesses stated that the glider was fast on final approach with no sign of spoiler use. The glider touched down and drifted into the two gliders in position. An instructor pilot stated that the glider was traveling about 50 knots when it hit the first glider. Spoiler use was observed by witnesses when a collision was imminent. The wheel brake is activated with full spoiler deployment. Normal flight procedures for landing are to land on the glider runway with gliders in launch position at the mid-runway position. If the pilot feels uncomfortable about the approach, he is to land on the power aircraft runway.
Probable cause
the glider pilot's decision to land on the grass covered infield instead of the alternate runway, and the pilot's failure to maintain directional control. Contributing to the accident was the pilot's improper use of the spoilers and brakes.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX96LA218
- Event ID
- 20001208X05827
- Case number
- LAX96LA218
- 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: 214b1daf71cb221f1384d9de4d0bb1771c0d25f45ee9122d3c3170c79c03f9f0; retrieved 2026-09-22T22:27:06.212Z.